Master Carlo, singling out Mrs. Loreleigh, devoted himself to her for the rest of the evening, with perfect indifference to the claims of the other lady guests.
“What a lovely voice Mrs. Thrushton has!” said his hostess to Stamford, as soon as the notes of enchantment came to an end.
“Lovely indeed!” echoed he; “it is long since I have heard such a song, if ever—though my daughter Laura has a voice worth listening to. But will not Miss Grandison sing?” he said after a decent interval.
“Josie has been well taught, and few girls sing better when she likes,” said her mother with a half sigh; “but she is so capricious that I can’t always get her to perform for us. She has got into an argument with Count Zamoreski, that handsome young Pole you see across the room, and she says she’s not coming away to amuse a lot of stupid people. Josie is quite a character, I assure you, and really the girls are so dreadfully self-willed nowadays, that there is no doing anything with them. But you must miss society so much in the bush! Don’t you? There are very few nice men to be found there, I have heard.”
“We are not so badly off as you suppose, Mrs. Grandison. People even there keep themselves informed of the world’s doings, and value art and literature. I often think the young people devote more time to mental culture than they do in town.”
“Indeed! I should hardly have supposed so. They can get masters so easily in town, and then again the young folks have such chances of meeting the best strangers—people of rank, for instance, and so on—that they never can dream of even seeing, away from town. Mr. Grandison wanted me to go into the bush when the children were young; and indeed one of his stations, Banyule, was a charming place, but I never would hear of it.”
“A town life fulfilled all your expectations, I conclude.”
“Yes, really, I think so; very nearly, that is to say. Josie has such ease of manner and is so thoroughly at home with people in every rank of life that I feel certain she will make her mark some day.”
“And your son Carlo?”
“Well, I don’t mind telling you, as an old friend, Mr. Stamford, that Mr. Grandison is uneasy about him sometimes, says he won’t settle down to anything, and is—well not really dissipated, you know, but inclined to be fast. But I tell him that will wear off as he gets older. Boys will be boys. Besides, see what an advantage it is to him to be in the society of men like Captain Maelstrom, Sir Harry Falconer, and people of that stamp.”