“Oh dear no, only it isn’t a great encouragement to push myself forward, is it?”
“He tells me that there is another cousin of mine staying with him and his wife. He describes her as beautiful. What do you think?”
“I agree. I knew her brother.”
“Poor Harry Gascoyne. Killed by a fall from his horse, wasn’t he?”
“Horse kicked him.”
“Strange, must have been a brute.”
I talked to him as he undressed. He was inquisitive about the South Kensington household.
“Hardly know Gascoyne Gascoyne myself. Always heard he married badly.”
“He married very well, only her father happened to be a linen-draper.”
“Good heavens, that’s nothing in our days. Lord Southwick’s father-in-law was a grocer, and a very distinguished old gentleman, too. A damned sight better bred than ever the Southwicks were. They all look like stable-boys. Sort of family in which you’d think the women had been going wrong with the grooms for generations. Southwick married groceries and manners at the same time.”