'And you have been in Becky's confidence all this time!' I murmured a little confusedly, with the consciousness of what that might mean.
'More than she imagines, perhaps; since she is no match for me in diplomacy. I need not tell you she is leal.'
'No.'
'How different the ring of those two voices!' he presently added, as the others again approached by the path running parallel with the wall upon which we were sitting, and on the other side of the kitchen garden, separating and screening us from observation, and across which came the voices of Mrs Chichester and Lilian.
'I am glad that is evident to others as well as to me,' I rejoined. 'I like to think they are dissimilar in the least as well as the greatest points. Lilian will never become a woman of fashion.'
'Not while what she typifies is out of date.'
I knew that he meant the enthusiasm and romance—the delicate purity of her mind, which was so harmoniously typified by her style of beauty. Then following out my thought, I absently added: 'And you are his friend.'
'We were together at Eton and Oxford. Our families are distantly related; and he being four or five years my junior, was placed by his father in some degree under my charge, though we were in different sets.'
'I can imagine that.'
'He was a favourite at the university; and'—as though searching about in his mind for some other good thing to say—'His love for her is sincere.'