"You think she would have objected?" queried Walden, coldly.
"Oh, I won't go so far as that--no!--eh, your Grace--we won't go so far as that!"
The Duke of Lumpton, thus suddenly adjured, looked round, and smiled vacantly.
"Won't go so far as what?" he asked; "Didn't catch it!"
"I was talking of Maryllia Vancourt," said Sir Morton with a kind of fatuous leer; "YOU know her, of course!--everyone knows her more or less. Charming girl!--charming! Maryllia Van!--ha-ha!"
And Sir Morton laughed and leered again till certain veins, moved by cerebral emotion, protruded largely on his forehead. His Grace laughed also, but shortly and indifferently.
"Oh, ya-as--ya-as! She's the one who's just had a rumpus with her rich American aunt. I believe they don't speak, After years of devotion, eh? So like women, ain't it!"
The Reverend 'Putty' Leveson, who had been stooping over his bicycle to set something right that was invariably going wrong with that particular machine, and who was redder than ever in the face with his efforts, now looked up.
"Miss Vancourt is coming back to the Manor to reside there, so I hear," he said. "Very dull for a woman accustomed to London and Paris. I expect she'll stay about ten days."
"One never knows--one cannot tell!" sighed Julian Adderley. "Sometimes to the satiated female mind, overwrought with social dissipation, there comes a strange longing for peace!--for the scent of roses!--for the yellow shine of cowslips!--for the song of the mating birds!--for the breath of cows!"
Mr. Marius Longford smiled, and picked a tall buttercup nodding in the grass at his feet.
"Such aspirations in the fair sex are absolutely harmless," he said; "Let us hope the lady's wishes may find their limit in a soothing pastoral!" "Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Sir Morton. "You are deep, my dear sir, you are very deep! God bless my soul! Deep as a well! No wonder people are afraid of you! Clever, clever! I'm afraid of you myself! Come along, come along! Can I assist your Grace?" Here he pushed aside with a smothered 'Damn!' the footman, who stood holding open the door of the waggonette, and officiously gave the Duke of Lumpton a hand to help him into the carriage. "Now, Lord Mawdenham, please! You next, Mr. Longford! Come, come, Mr. Adderley! Think of Lady Elizabeth! She will be arriving at the Hall before we are there to receive her! Terrible, terrible! Come along! We're all ready!"