“So you’re going to be married, too,” said the Honourable George, by whose side Crosbie found himself seated when the ladies were gone.  Crosbie was employing himself upon a walnut, and did not find it necessary to make any answer.

“It’s the best thing a fellow can do,” continued George; “that is, if he has been careful to look to the main chance,—­if he hasn’t been caught napping, you know.  It doesn’t do for a man to go hanging on by nothing till he finds himself an old man.”

“You’ve feathered your own nest, at any rate.”

“Yes; I’ve got something in the scramble, and I mean to keep it.  Where will John be when the governor goes off the hooks?  Porlock wouldn’t give him a bit of bread and cheese and a glass of beer to save his life;—­that is to say, not if he wanted it.”

“I’m told your elder brother is going to be married.”

“You’ve heard that from John.  He’s spreading that about everywhere to take a rise out of me.  I don’t believe a word of it.  Porlock never was a marrying man;—­and, what’s more, from all I hear, I don’t think he’ll live long.”

In this way Crosbie escaped from his own difficulty; and when he rose from the dinner-table had not as yet been driven to confess anything to his own discredit.

But the evening was not yet over.  When he returned to the drawing-room he endeavoured to avoid any conversation with the countess herself, believing that the attack would more probably come from her than from her daughter.  He, therefore, got into conversation first with one and then with another of the girls, till at last he found himself again alone with Alexandrina.

“Mr Crosbie,” she said, in a low voice, as they were standing together over one of the distant tables, with their backs to the rest of the company, “I want you to tell me something about Miss Lilian Dale.”

“About Miss Lilian Dale!” he said, repeating her words.

“Is she very pretty?”

“Yes; she certainly is pretty.”

“And very nice, and attractive, and clever,—­and all that is delightful?  Is she perfect?”

“She is very attractive,” said he; “but I don’t think she’s perfect.”

“And what are her faults?”

“That question is hardly fair, is it?  Suppose any one were to ask me what were your faults, do you think I should answer the question?”

“I am quite sure you would, and make a very long list of them, too.  But as to Miss Dale, you ought to think her perfect.  If a gentleman were engaged to me, I should expect him to swear before all the world that I was the very pink of perfection.”

“But supposing the gentleman were not engaged to you?”

“That would be a different thing.”

“I am not engaged to you,” said Crosbie.  “Such happiness and such honour are, I fear, very far beyond my reach.  But, nevertheless, I am prepared to testify as to your perfection anywhere.”