“It is also my home,” said the Marquis. “My memory is occasionally faulty, but I retain the liveliest recollection of what you so rightly term the fuss and botheration that attended the balls given there for Augusta, for yourself, and for Eliza, and my answer, dear sister, is No!”

“Have you no proper feeling?” she said tragically.

He had drawn an enamel snuff-box from his pocket, and was critically studying the painting on its lid. “No, none at all. I wonder if I made a mistake when I purchased this? I liked it at the time, but I begin to find it a trifle insipid.” He sighed, and opened the box, with a practised flick of his thumb. “And I most assuredly do not like this mixture,” he said, inhaling an infinitesimal pinch, and dusting his fingers with an expression of distaste. “You will say, of course, that I should have known better than to have permitted Mendlesham to thrust his Sort upon me, and you are perfectly right: one should always mix one’s own.” He got up. “Well, if that’s all, I’ll take my leave of you.”

“It is not all!” she uttered, her colour much heightened. “I knew how it would be, of course — oh, I knew!”

“I imagine you might, but why the devil you wasted my time — ”

“Because I hoped that for once in your life you might show some — some sensibility! some apprehension of what is due to your family! even some affection for poor Jane!”

“Rainbow-chasing, Louisa! My lack of sensibility has distressed you for years; I haven’t the least affection for your poor Jane, whom I should be hard put to it to recognize, if I met her unawares; and I’ve yet to learn that the Buxted are members of my family.”