For an instant this was answered by one of those looks of absolute composure, in every muscle and feature, which put an effectual bar to all further attempts from without, or revelations from within a look Fleda remembered well, and felt even in her corner. But it presently relaxed, and he said with his usual manner,
"You cannot understand, then, Miss Constance, that there should be any romance about business?"
"I cannot understand," said Mrs. Evelyn, "why romance should not come after business. Mr. Carleton, Sir, you have seen American scenery this summer; isn't American beauty worth staying a little while longer for?"
"My dear," said Mr. Evelyn, "Mr. Carleton is too much of a philosopher to care about beauty every man of sense is."
"I am sure he is not," said Mrs. Evelyn, smoothly. "Mr.
Carleton, you are an admirer of beauty, are you not, Sir ?"
"I hope so, Mrs. Evelyn," he said smiling; "but perhaps, I shall shock you by adding not of beauties."
"That sounds very odd," said Florence.
"But let us understand," said Mrs. Evelyn, with the air of a person solving a problem; "I suppose we are to infer that your taste in beauty is of a peculiar kind?"
"That may be a fair inference," he said.
"What is it, then?" said Constance, eagerly.