“Où prenez vous ce ton qui n’appartient qu’ à vous?” he thought; and he acquitted her of any conspiracy in the cross-country walk, any complicity in his sister’s manœuvres to make her meet him at Bedlowes. She was undoubtedly a victim of circumstances—a square-cut ivory peg which was ill fitted to the round gilded hole into which it was forced. He did not for a moment doubt the sincerity of her dislike to her position; his own nature was one which enabled him to understand the revolt of hers. “But she must dree her weird,” he thought again.
“Why are you so uncivil to that charming person who renders Beethoven so perfectly?” said his hostess to him that evening.
“There is no harm in the charming person, but there is a great deal in her antecedents,” replied Hurstmanceaux very coldly.
“Oh, ‘antecedents,’ my dear Ronnie! Who can look at them? Royalty itself disregards them when—when——”
“When there’s money enough! I am not bound to follow the example of Royalty.”
“You did what was unworthy of you, my dear old friend,” he added. “Of course Mouse egged you on; but you should know what Mouse is by this time.”
“Indeed she meant no harm in this instance. She knows that you want money.”
“I do not want money. I have not got very much at my command: that is another matter.”
“But the boys are such a drag on you?”
“Oh, no, they are fine fellows; they interest me, and they do very much what I tell them.”