Miss Grey allowed herself to be led to a sofa a little distance from where she had been sitting. Mr. Money sat beside her.
"Now, Lucelet, I want to ask Miss Grey a sensible question or two, which I don't think you would care twopence about. Just you go and help our two Theresas to talk to Mr. Heron."
"But, papa darling, Miss Grey won't care about what you call sensible subjects any more than I. She won't know anything about them."
"Yes, dear, she will; look at her forehead."
"Oh, I have looked at it! Isn't it beautiful?"
"I didn't mean that," Mr. Money said with a smile; "I meant that it looked sensible and thoughtful. Now, go away, Lucelet, like a dear little girl."
Miss Grey sat quietly through all this. She was not in the least offended. Mr. Money seemed to her to be just what a man ought to be—uncouth, rough, and domineering. She was amused meanwhile to observe the kind of devotion and enthusiasm with which Mr. Heron was entering into conversation with Mrs. Money and her elder daughter. That, too, was just what a man ought to be—a young man—silly in his devotion to women, unless, perhaps, where the devotion was to be accounted for otherwise than by silliness, as in a case like the present, where the unmarried women might be presumed to have large fortunes. So Miss Grey liked the whole scene. It was as good as a play to her, especially as good as a play which confirms all one's own theories of life.
"England, Mr. Heron," said Mrs. Money in her melancholy voice, "is near her fall."
"Oh, Mrs. Money, pray pardon me—England! you amaze me—I am surprised—do forgive me—to hear an Englishwoman say so; our England with her glorious destiny!" The young man blushed and grew confused. One might have thought his mother had been called in question or his sweetheart.
Mrs. Money shook her head and twirled one of her bracelets.