"I am sure you will see what I mean," the Doctor said, gratefully. "In the first place, it's far too big to make society general—you'll allow that? Well, then, the result is, that society, being so vast, breaks itself up into little coteries. It's liker a number of bits of villages just touching each other, like a long thread of them, every one with its own little atmosphere. That's just London to me. You meet the same people as if you were in a village; then go out of that clique to another, and you meet the same people again, but another set. There was one day," said the minister, with a certain pride, "that I was very dissipated. I went out to my lunch, and then to a party in the afternoon, and then to my dinner, and to two places at night. It was a great experience. Well, if you'll believe me, I was wearied with seeing the same faces, in a great society like London, the chief place in the world. There was scarcely one I did not meet three times in the course of that day. In the country here, you could not do more. There's as much variety as that in Dunearn itself."
"I see what Dr Meldrum means," said Carry. "No doubt it was a special society into which he had been introduced, and people were asked to meet him because they were distinguished—because they were people whom it was a pleasure to meet."
"That's a great compliment to me, but I cannot take it to myself. They were, many of them, persons that it was no pleasure to meet. Some with titles, and, so far as I could see, little more. Some that were perhaps rich—I hope so, at least, for they were nothing else."
"This is cynicism," said Lord Lindores; "and I, who have lived in the opinion that Dr Meldrum was the most benignant, the most tolerant of men——"
"One can understand entirely," repeated Lady Caroline, standing by her friend, "what he means. I have thought so myself. The same faces, the same ideas, even the same words that mean so little——"
"I didn't know you were so well up in London society, Lady Car," said her husband, who had been trying for some time to strike into the mêlée, and whose lance was specially aimed at her of all the talkers. And then there was a general flutter of talk, instinctive, all round the table; for when a man stretches across to say something disagreeable to his wife, everybody present is upon their honour to quench the nascent quarrel. The ladies left the table soon after; and the conversation of the men did not afford the same risks, for after one or two contradictions, which the Earl put aside with well-bred ease and a slight but unanswerable contempt, Torrance sank into sulky silence, taking a great deal of wine. At such moments a little poetic justice and punishment of his sins towards his daughter was inflicted even upon Lord Lindores.
CHAPTER XI.
"Do you like him, Nora?"
This is a question that means nothing in most cases, nor would it have meant anything now save for Nora's special sense of having been presented to John Erskine in something like the light of a candidate for his favour.