But Marjorie perceived that I meant more than met the eye, and that what I meant was meant unpleasantly.
‘Come,—let us be off. It is Mr Atherton to-night who is not well.’
She had just slipped her arm through Lessingham’s when her father approached. Old Lindon stared at her on the Apostle’s arm, as if he could hardly believe that it was she.
‘I thought that you were at the Duchess’?’
‘So I have been, papa; and now I’m here.’
‘Here!’ Old Lindon began to stutter and stammer, and to grow red in the face, as is his wont when at all excited. ‘W—what do you mean by here?—wh—where’s the carriage?’
‘Where should it be, except waiting for me outside,—unless the horses have run away.’
‘I—I—I’ll take you down to it. I—I don’t approve of y—your w—w—waiting in a place like this.’
‘Thank you, papa, but Mr Lessingham is going to take me down.—I shall see you afterwards.—Good-bye.’
Anything cooler than the way in which she walked off I do not think I ever saw. This is the age of feminine advancement. Young women think nothing of twisting their mothers round their fingers, let alone their fathers; but the fashion in which that young woman walked off, on the Apostle’s arm, and left her father standing there, was, in its way, a study.