“I hope your mother is well,” she said at last, falteringly, after a long pause. Ursula thought her companion would remark this pause, and think her displeased. She might have saved herself the trouble, for it was the braised turkey which kept Clarence quiet, not offence.
“Oh, quite well, I thank you. Not so well as when I am at home; she don't like parting with me,” he said, “but, of course, I can't be always at my mother's apron-strings. Women forget that.”
“She was very kind when I was in London.”
“Yes, that just pleases her; she is never so happy as when she is buying things for somebody,” he replied, betraying an acquaintance with the exact manner of the kindness which somewhat disturbed poor Ursula: “that is exactly her way. I dare say she'll come and see the Dorsets while I'm here.”
Then there was again a pause, and Clarence turned to speak to some one at his other side.
“No, I don't hunt much,” he said; “I have come into the country to be coached. My father's a modern sort of man, and wants a fellow to be up in history, and that sort of thing. Bore—yes; and I dare say Carlingford is very dull. Oh, yes, I will go out with the hounds now and then, if there is not a frost. I should rather like a frost for my part.”
It was a hunting lady who had started this new conversation, into which the stranger had drifted away, leaving Ursula stranded. She was slightly piqued, it must be allowed, and when Sophy asked her after dinner how she liked her companion, made a dignified reply.
“I have no doubt he is very nice,” she said; “I don't know much of gentlemen. He talks of papa as if he were a school-master, and thinks Carlingford will be dull.”
“So it is, Ursula. I have often heard you say so.”
“Yes, perhaps; but a stranger ought to be civil,” said the girl, offended; and she went and entrenched herself by the side of Cousin Anne, where the new pupil could not come near her. Indeed he did not seem very anxious to do so, as Ursula soon saw. She blushed very hotly all by herself, under Cousin Anne's shadow: that she could have been so absurd as ever to think—But his size, and the weight over which he had lamented, and his abundant whiskers and large shirt front, made it quite impossible for Ursula to think of him as a person to be educated. It must be Miss Beecham, she said to herself.