"God forbid!" I answered fervently.
"Not jealous of Harry, are you? Not smitten at the very sound of the lady's name,—like the young bloods, and the old ones, too, in the city?"
"God forbid!" I replied again.
"Hang it all, can't you say anything more than that?" he asked testily.
"Oh, yes! dad,—lots," I answered, closing my book and keeping my finger at the place. "For one thing—I have never met this Lady Rosemary Granton; never even seen her picture—and, to tell you the truth, from what I have heard of her, I have no immediate desire to make the lady's acquaintance."
There was silence for a moment, and from my father's heavy breathing I could gather that his temper was ruffling.
"Look here, you young barbarian, you revolutionary,—what do you mean? What makes you talk in that way of one of the best and sweetest young ladies in the country? I won't have it from you, sir, this Lady Rosemary Granton, this Lady indeed."
"Oh! you know quite well, dad, what I mean," I continued, a little bored. "Harry is no angel, and I doubt not but Lady Rosemary is by far too good for him. But,—you know,—you cannot fail to have heard the stories that are flying over the country of her cantrips;—some of them, well, not exactly pleasant. And, allowing fifty percent for exaggeration, there is still a lot that would be none the worse of considerable discounting to her advantage."
"Tuts, tush and nonsense! Foolish talk most of it! The kind of stuff that is garbled and gossiped about every popular woman. The girl is up-to-date, modern, none of your drawing-room dolls. I admit that she has go in her, vim, animal spirits, youthful exuberance and all that. She may love sport and athletics, but, but,—you, yourself, spend most of your time in pursuit of these same amusements. Why not she?"
"Why! father, these are the points I admire in her,—the only ones, I may say. But, oh! what's the good of going over it all? I know, you know,—everybody knows;—her flirtations, her affairs; every rake in London tries to boast of his acquaintance with her and bandies her name over his brandy and soda, and winks."