“Well—I—I—don’t know. Mustn’t one talk of one’s neighbours?”
“It shows great poverty of mind to speak merely of people. There are so many other subjects.”
Marlow is abashed.
He knows that his mind is not rich according to her ideas of intellectual wealth.
“At all events,” he says, rather crossly and hotly, “one may be allowed to envy such a prig such good luck as to have Miss Seymour for a champion.”
“Jane,” says Cicely, turning to her friend, “here come your children. How well that mite Dolly rides!”
“He is a prig, you know, my dear,” murmurs Lady Jane, “and I am sorry it makes you angry when we say so.”
“I dislike all injustice,” says Cicely, coldly, “and I do not consider that Mr. Bertram is in the least done justice to by his friends and relations. How badly every one treated him yesterday in return for a most learned and interesting lecture!”
While she is thus defending himself and his doctrines in his absence, Bertram, still seated under the trees, sees in the distance a girl’s figure; she wears a black straw hat, a black jacket, and a grey stuff skirt; she has thread gloves and leather highlows, the highlows are white with dust; she has two deep baskets filled with primroses and covered by red cotton handkerchiefs; she carries one on each arm. She has a round, fair, freckled face, a sweet and cheerful expression, and a fringe of naturally curling brown hair.
She approaches Bertram smiling: “Oh, gracious, sir! Don’t get up for the likes of me. Mother told me as how you were under this tree; I just met her by the Gate, so I thought I’d come and have a peep at you.”