“What a gentleman your father looks beside them,” cried Phœbe; “both of them, father and son; though Clarence, after all, is a great deal better than his father, less like a British snob.”
Ursula came and stood by her, looking out.
“I don't think he is much better than his father,” she said.
Phœbe took her hand suddenly and wrung it, then dropped it as if it had hurt her. What did it all mean? Ursula, though rays of enlightenment had come to her, was still perplexed, and did not understand.
Mr. Copperhead did not see her till he went to luncheon, when Phœbe appeared with little Amy May looking like a visitor, newly arrived. She had run upstairs after that first sight of him from the window, declaring herself unable to be civil to him except at table. The great man's face almost grew pale at the sight of her. He looked at Ursula, and then at Clarence, and laughed.
“'Wheresoever the carcase is the eagles are gathered together,'” he said. “That's Scripture, ain't it, Miss Ursula? I am not good at giving chapter and verse.”
“What does it mean?” asked Ursula.
She was quite indifferent to Mr. Copperhead, and perfectly unconscious of his observation. As for Phœbe, on the contrary, she was slightly agitated, her placid surface ruffled a little, and she looked her best in her agitation. Mr. Copperhead looked straight at her across the table, and laughed in his insolent way.
“So you are here too, Miss Phœbe!” he said. “I might think myself in the Crescent if I didn't know better. I met young Northcote just now, and now you. What may you be doing here, might one ask? It is what you call a curious coincidence, ain't it, Clarence and you both here?”
“I said so when Mr. Clarence came,” said Phœbe. “I came to take care of my grandmother, who is ill; and it was a very lucky thing for me that I had met Miss May at your ball, Mr. Copperhead.”