Betty and Eira glanced at her in mute admiration. How could she have the courage to address this exceedingly smart personage with such ease and self-possession? Nor did the manner of his reply diminish their wonder. He seemed to look at Frances as if he had not seen her before, though at the same time no one could possibly have accused him of the slightest touch of discourtesy.
“I haven’t the vaguest idea,” he said, “and there would be small chance of my recognising the place if I did see it.”
“How does Craig-Morion strike you?” asked Lady Emma, and the well-bred indifference of her tone was greatly appreciated by Betty and Eira, who by this time had labelled the newcomer as “horridly stuck-up and affected.”
“Craig-Morion?” he repeated. “Oh, I think it may serve our purpose very well for the time. Of course it should have a complete overhauling, but Morion doesn’t think it worth while to do much to it, and, substantially speaking, it’s not in bad repair. I think, however, I shall be able to report sufficiently well of it to make my sisters—or sister more probably—come down to see it for themselves.”
Even Lady Emma was slightly nettled at his tone of half-contemptuous approval of the place which to the family at Fir Cottage represented so much.
“It is a pity,” she said, speaking more stiffly than before, “that the head of the family should never live at what was—is—really their original home.”
Mr Littlewood raised his eyebrows.
“Why should he?” he said carelessly; “he’s got everything in the world he wants at Witham-Meldon and at his Scotch place. He’d feel this awfully out-of-the-world.”
This last speech was too much for the feelings of one person in the company. Shyness disappeared in indignation, and, to the utter amazement of her audience, Betty’s voice, pitched in a higher key than usual, broke the silence.
“I think,” she said, while a red spot glowed on each cheek, “I think it’s a perfect shame and utterly unfair that any one should own a place which they never care to see; and of course it is actually unfair, as everybody knows it should be ours!”