Richard was very much flattered. His crest rose.
"And they say," continued Mrs. M'Catchley, dropping out her words very slowly, as she adjusted her blonde scarf, "that Mr. Avenel has resolved not to marry."
"The devil they do, ma'am!" bolted out Richard, gruffly; and then, ashamed of his lapsus linguæ, screwed up his lips firmly, and glared on the company with an eye of indignant fire.
Mrs. M'Catchley observed him over her fan. Richard turned abruptly, and she withdrew her eyes modestly, and raised the fan.
"She's a real beauty," said Richard, between his teeth.
The fan fluttered.
Five minutes afterwards, the widow and the bachelor seemed so much at their ease that Mrs. Pompley—who had been forced to leave her friend, in order to receive the Dean's lady—could scarcely believe her eyes when she returned to the sofa.
Now, it was from that evening that Mr. Richard Avenel exhibited the change of mood which I have described. And from that evening he abstained from taking Leonard with him to any of the parties in the Abbey Gardens.
CHAPTER IX.
Some days after this memorable soirée, Colonel Pompley sat alone in his drawing-room (which opened pleasantly on an old-fashioned garden) absorbed in the house bills. For Colonel Pompley did not leave that domestic care to his lady—perhaps she was too grand for it. Colonel Pompley with his own sonorous voice ordered the joints, and with his own heroic hand dispensed the stores. In justice to the Colonel, I must add—at whatever risk of offence to the fair sex—that there was not a house at Screwstown so well managed as the Pompleys'; none which so successfully achieved the difficult art of uniting economy with show. I should despair of conveying to you an idea of the extent to which Colonel Pompley made his income go. It was but seven hundred a-year; and many a family contrive to do less upon three thousand. To be sure, the Pompleys had no children to sponge upon them. What they had, they spent all on themselves. Neither, if the Pompleys never exceeded their income, did they pretend to live much within it. The two ends of the year met at Christmas—just met, and no more.