("I don't doubt it, you look it," was Hugh John's mental note.) Aloud he said, "Saint Salvator's is a ripping place. We beat Glen Fetto by an innings and ninety-one!"
Mr. Courtenay Carling took no notice. He was talking earnestly and confidentially to his cousin. Hugh John had had enough of this.
"Come on, Priss," he said roughly, "let's go home."
Prissy was nothing loath. She was just aching to get him by himself, so that she might begin to burn incense at his manly shrine. She had had stacks of it ready, and the match laid for weeks and weeks.
"Good-night," said Cissy frigidly. Hugh John took hold of her dainty gloved fingers as gingerly as if each had been a stinging nettle, and dropped them as quickly. Mr. Courtenay Carling paused in his conversation just long enough to say over his shoulder, "Ah—ta-ta—got lots of pets to run round and see, I s'pose—rabbits and guinea-pigs; used to keep 'em myself, you know, beastly things, ta-ta!"
And with Cissy by his side he moved off, alternately twirling his moustache and glancing approvingly down at her. Cissy on her part never once looked round, but kept poking her parasol into the plants at the side of the road, as determinedly as if it had been the old pike manufactured by the exiled king O'Donowitch. Such treatment could not have been at all good for such a miracle of silk and lace and cane; but somehow its owner did not seem to mind.
"What an awful brute!" burst out Hugh John, as soon as Prissy and he were clear.
"Oh, how can you say so!" said Prissy, much surprised; "why, every one thinks him so nice. He has such lots of money, and is going to stand for Parliament—that is, if his uncle would only die, or have something happen to him!"
Her brother snorted, as if to convey his contempt for "everybody's" opinion on such a matter; but Prissy was too happy to care for aught save the fact that once more her dear Hugh John was safe at home.
"Do you know," she said lovingly, "I could not sleep last night for thinking of your coming! It is so splendid. There's the loveliest lot of roses being planted in the new potting house, and I've got a pearl necklace to show you—such a beauty—and——"