"Then I suspect the former members feel small."
"One or two of the best players feel ill-tempered, I think, unless they make-believe very much. Lottie means to win the ivory mallet, she says; and I think she will. Mrs. Rawlinson's sister always considered herself the champion, and I am sure Lottie," etc., etc.
In short, by the time it occurred to anybody that Percival and Addie were talking together, their conversation, carried smoothly on, was precisely what anybody might hear.
The Pickerings went off in one direction, the Blakes in another, and the young men resumed their walk.
"That's over, and the governor not by," said Horace.
"Don't be too secure," was Percival's reply. "Everybody talks about everybody else at Fordborough."
"Well," said Horace, who apparently would not be discouraged, "it's something not to have been standing between the old gentleman and Aunt Middleton, and then to have seen Mrs. Blake sailing straight at one, her face illuminated with a smile visible to the naked eye a quarter of a mile off—eh, Percy?"
"You are a lucky fellow, no doubt," said Percival.
"And, after all, it is quite possible—"
"That you may be a very lucky fellow indeed? Yes, it is quite possible. But I don't quite see what you are after, Horace."