"What is wrong now?" said Rintoul. "I declare I never know what to say. Sometimes you take things quite easily. Sometimes you will flare up at nothing at all."
"Do you think it is nothing at all that your sister and I should be brought into what you yourselves call a husband-hunt?" cried Lady Lindores. "Have you not told me of a dozen women who are trying to catch this man and that? Don't you think it is ignominious to expose us to the same reproach? Perhaps they are just as innocent of it as I."
"Oh, trust them for that," said Rintoul, with a laugh. "Of course it is said of everybody. It will be said of you just the same; we can't help that. But surely you can see yourself—even you can see—that when a fellow like Millefleurs actually puts himself out of the way to come after a girl like Edith——"
"Robin!" cried his mother (a little accès of passion seized her). "Do you think Edith—Edith, your sister—is not worth a hundred boys like this Millefleurs? What do you mean by coming out of his way? Is it the fashion now that girls like Edith should put themselves at the disposal of a little jackanapes—a bit of a boy—a——"
"Don't lose your temper, mamma," said the young man, with a laugh. "But now you've had it out," said this wise son, "only just be reasonable, and think a moment. Millefleurs is a great catch. There's not such a big fish to be landed anywhere; and Edith is no better than a hundred others. Do hear a fellow out. She's very pretty and nice, and all that; but there's heaps of pretty, nice girls—and the prettier they are, and the nicer they are, the less they have a penny to bless themselves with," he added, in a regretful parenthesis. "There's a hundred of them, and there's only one of him. Of course he knows that well enough. Of course he knows it's a great thing when he lets a girl see that he admires her; and if her people are such fools as to let him slip through their fingers for want of a little trouble—why, then, they deserve to lose their chance,—and that's all I can say," Rintoul said.
Once more Lady Lindores was silenced. What was the use of saying anything? Indignation was out of place, or anything that she could say of love profaned and marriage desecrated. To speak of the only foundation of a true union to this world-instructed boy—what would be the use of it? She swallowed down as best she could the bitterness, the pain, the disappointment and contempt, which it is anguish to feel in such a case. After a while she said with a smile, commanding herself, "And you, Robin, who are so clever as to know all this, are you too a catch, my poor boy? are you pursued by mothers, and competed for by girls?—not, of course, to the same extent as Lord Millefleurs—I recognise the difference; but something, I suppose, in the same way?"
"Well," said Rintoul, caressing his moustache, "not to the same extent, as you say, and not in the same way perhaps. I'm nobody, of course, when Millefleurs is there; but still, you know, when there's no Millefleurs on the horizon—why, one has one's value, mother. It's an old title, for one thing, and Scotch estates, which people think better than they are, perhaps. They don't throw heiresses at my head; but still, you know, in a general way——"
As he sat stroking that moustache which was not very mature yet, but rather young and scanty for its age, with a little smile of subdued vanity about his mouth, and a careless air of making light of his advantages, what woman could have helped laughing? But when a mother laughs at her boy, the ridicule hurts more than it amuses her. "I see," she said. "Then don't you think, Robin, you who are so clear-sighted, that this young man will see through our attentions, if we pay him attention, and laugh at our efforts to—catch him (that's the word, is it?), as much as you do yourself?"
"All right," said Rintoul; "so he will, of course; but what does that matter when a fellow takes a fancy into his head? Of course he knows you will want to catch him if you can—that stands to reason—everybody wants to catch him; but if he likes Edith, he will never mind that—if he likes Edith——"
"Robin, hold your tongue," cried his mother, almost violently. She felt that she could have boxed his ears in the heat of her displeasure. "I will not hear your sister's name bandied about so. You disgust me—you horrify me—you make me ill to hear you! My son! and you venture to speak of your sister so!"