"Never, plaise à Dieu!" responded her son, piously over his ice; "but if Goodwood's serious, what's Cardonnel? He's lost his head, if you like, after the Valletort beauty."
"Major Cardonnel!" said Lady Marabout, hastily. "Oh no, I don't think so. I hope not—I trust not."
"Why so? He's one of the finest fellows in the Service."
"I dare say; but you see, my dear Philip, he's not—not—desirable."
Carruthers stroked his moustaches and laughed:
"Fie, fie, mother! if all other Belgraviennes are Mammon-worshippers, I thought you kept clear of the paganism. I thought your freedom from it was the only touch by which you weren't 'purely feminine,' as the lady novelists say of their pet bits of chill propriety."
"Worship Mammon! Heaven forbid!" ejaculated Lady Marabout. "But there are duties, you see, my dear; your friend is a very delightful man, to be sure; I like him excessively, and if Valencia felt any great preference for him——"
"You'd feel it your duty to counsel her to throw him over for Goodwood."
"I never said so, Philip," interrupted Lady Marabout, with as near an approach to asperity as she could achieve, which approach was less like vinegar than most people's best honey.
"But you implied it. What are 'duties' else, and why is poor Cardonnel 'not desirable'?"