Miss Chartley, who was a very gentle, prettily behaved girl, seized the opportunity to intervene in what promised to develop into a shrill quarrel, turning towards Miss Trent, and saying in her soft, shy voice: “I expect you know more about Sir Waldo than any of us, for you were used to live in London, were you not? Perhaps you may even have met him?”

“No, indeed I have not,” Miss Trent replied. “I never saw him, to my knowledge, and know no more of him than the rest of the world.” She added, with the glimmer of a smile: “The company he keeps was quite above my touch!”

“I daresay you didn’t wish for his acquaintance,” said Charlotte. “I’m sure I don’t: I hate beaux! And if he is coming here to hold up his nose at us all I hope he will go away again!”

“I expect he will,” said Miss Trent, threading her needle.

“Yes, that is what Papa says,” agreed Miss Chartley. “He thinks he can only be coming to settle with the lawyers, and perhaps to sell Broom Hall, for he can’t wish to live in it, can he? Papa says he has a very beautiful house in Gloucestershire, which has been in his family for generations. And if he is so very fine and fashionable he must think this a dull place, I daresay—though it is quite close to Harrogate, of course.”

“Harrogate!” said Courtenay contemptuously. “That won’t fadge! He won’t remain at Broom Hall above a sennight, I’ll be bound! There’s nothing to make him wish to stay, after all.”

“No?” said his cousin, a provocative smile on her exquisite countenance.

“No!” he stated, revolted by this odious self-satisfaction. “And if you think he has only to see you to fall in love with you you much mistake the matter! I dare swear he is acquainted with a score of girls prettier by far than you!”

“Oh, no!” she said, adding simply: “He couldn’t be!”

Miss Chartley protested involuntarily: “Oh, Tiffany, how can you? I beg your pardon, but indeed you shouldn’t—!’”