“Yes, ‘Lord Bancourt’! Don’t look as though I had shot you! Why, you silly dear thing, you must know Bobby is madly in love with you. All this week he has followed you about like an obedient dog, and all the week you’ve ignored him as though he were a naughty mongrel!”
“Why, I’m sure I’ve treated him just like anybody else. I never——”
“My dear Elfrida, you will be the death of me! Do you think he wants no more of you? Are you living in the Middle Ages, or is this the Twentieth century? Do you expect him to come and steal you away by night and force? Nowadays the girl must do her part. Bobby is a splendid fellow, an old friend of mine, rich, young, passably good-looking——”
“I think he’s handsome, decidedly,” Elfrida said, without a thought, and then blushed scarlet.
Her aunt laughed. “And I think you’re in love with him,” she said. “I know he only wants a little encouragement—not quite so much ice to the square inch, my dear! Won’t you try, for my sake?”
“I’ll try, auntie, yes: I could be very, very happy with him—if he asked me: but I don’t think I could—it’s so hard——”
Lady Silthirsk kissed her. “I don’t ask anything, you little goose, except that you should be just humanly kind to poor Bobby—I think he’ll do the rest!”
“I’ll try,” said Elfrida dubiously.
Her aunt, she reflected, was not of a nature to see how terrible it would be if people should believe her to be “angling” for Lord Bancourt. Better that he should choose some one else than that he should marry her on such a rumour!
“Oh, here they are!” cried Lady Silthirsk, as her husband brought his flock into the room, shouting: