’Somebody introduced her to me, and then I had to walk about the grounds with her.  That’s the kind of thing one always does in these places.’

’Just so.  That is what “those places” are meant for, I suppose.  But it was not apparently a great infliction.’  Lord Silverbridge had to explain that it was not an infliction;—­that it was a privilege, seeing that Miss Boncassen was both clever and lovely; but that it did not mean anything in particular.

When he took his leave he asked his sister to go out into the grounds with him for a moment.  This she did almost unwillingly, fearing that he was about to speak to her of Tregear.  But he had no such purpose on his mind.  ‘Of course you know,’ he began, ’all that was nonsense you were saying about Mabel.’

‘I did not know.’

‘I was afraid you might blurt out something before her.’

‘I should not be so imprudent.’

’Girls do make such fools of themselves sometimes.  They are always thinking about people being in love.  But it is the truth that my father said to me the other day how very much he liked what he had heard of her, and that he would like you to know her.’

On that same evening Silverbridge wrote from the Beargarden the shortest possible note to Lady Mabel, telling her what he had arranged.  ’I and Mary propose to call in B. Square on Friday at two.  I must be early because of the House.  You will give us lunch.  S.’  There was no word of endearment,—­none of those ordinary words which people who hate each other use to one another.  But he received the next day at home a much more kindly-written note from her: 

’Dear lord Silverbridge,

’You are so good!  You always do just what you think people will like best.  Nothing could please me so much as seeing your sister, of whom of course I have heard very very much.  There shall be nobody here but Miss Cass.

’Yours most sincerely,
M.G.’

‘How I do wish I were a man!’ his sister said to him when they were in the hansom together.

‘You’d have a great deal more trouble.’

’But I’d have a hansom of my own, and go where I pleased.  How would you like to be shut up in a place like The Horn?’

‘You can go out if you like.’

’Not like you.  Papa thinks it’s the proper place for me to live in, and so I must live there.  I don’t think a woman ever chooses how or where she shall live herself.’

‘You are not going to take up woman’s rights, I hope.’

’I think I shall if I stay at The Horns much longer.  What would papa say if he heard that I was going to give a lecture at the Institute?’

’The governor has had so many things to bear that a trifle such as that would make but little difference.’

‘Poor papa!’

’He was dreadfully cut up about Gerald.  And then he is so good!  He said more to me about Gerald than he ever did about my own little misfortune at Oxford; but to Gerald himself he said almost nothing.  Now he has forgiven me because he thinks I am constant at the House.’