“Are you fond of walking?”
“Oh yes, very, very fond.”
Of course, it was not true; but equally of course Toby would think the better of her if he could picture her stumping through wet vegetables by his side. Her ideas of all sport, except racing, were of the vaguest.
“Mrs. Tancred is inaccessible on Sunday afternoon?”
“I believe that she does not like to be disturbed; she shuts herself up to study.”
“She always interests me,” said Miss Barnacre, as if making an announcement that was advantageous to its object. “There is something stimulating to the curiosity in those resolutely solitary thinkers; but I cannot quite make her out. I used to think that she had leanings towards Hegelianism.”
“Had she?” returned Bonnybell, faintly, asking herself, with a sick heart, whether Hegelianism—whatever it might be—was one of the properties that no jeune fille bien élevée should be without. Let it be what else it might, it was certainly a word of ill omen, for no sooner was it pronounced than Toby pushed back his chair with such cruel violence that it fell over backwards, and left the room, shutting the door noisily behind him.
“In some respects I fancy she is nearer Esoteric Buddhism,” continued the governess, fixing her unescapable eye upon the victim of her horrible suppositions. “I must tackle her upon the subject.”
“I am sure that she will be delighted,” murmured Miss Ransome, with the greatest outward demureness, and a malicious inward wish that her tormentor would put her threat into execution and “tackle” Camilla. There could be little doubt as to the issue of the combat. Her own ardent personal wish now was to escape before revealing some damning and irretrievable ignorance.
“Do you think that Mr. Tancred is waiting for me?” she asked, turning, with pretty deference, to Miss Aylmer, whom she thought much more worth propitiating than the pushing propounder of odious riddles.