"By-the-by," he says, presently, with a wretchedly assumed air of carelessness, "is it true—it is as well to come to the fountain-head at once—is it true that once, some time in the dark ages, he—he—thought fit to engage himself to, to her?" (with a fierce accent on the last word).
A pain runs through my heart. Well, that is nothing new nowadays. He too has heard it, then.
"I do not know!" I answer, faintly.
"What! he has not told you? Kept it dark! eh?" (with the same hateful laugh).
"He has kept nothing dark!" I answer, indignantly. "One day he began to tell me something, and I stopped him! I would not hear; I did not want to hear, I believe; I am sure that they are—only—only—old friends."
"Old friends!" he echoes, with a smile, in comparison of which our host's satyr-leer seems pleasant and chaste. "Old friends! you call yourself a woman of the world" (indeed I call myself nothing of the kind), "you call yourself a woman of the world, and believe that! They looked like old friends at dinner to-day, did not they? A little less than kin, and more than kind! Ha! ha!"
CHAPTER XLIV.
Partridges are not General Parker's strong point, and the few he ever had his nephew has already shot. Roger must, therefore, for one day abstain from the turnip-ridges. To amuse us, however, and keep us all sociably together, and bridge the yawning gulf between breakfast and dinner, we are to be sent on an expedition. Not only an expedition, but a picnic. This is perhaps a little risky in such a climate as ours, and in a month so doubtfully hovering on the borders of winter as September; but the sun is shining, and we therefore make up our minds, contrary to all precedent, that he must necessarily go on shining.