"
I would not please her by showing my anger.
"Perhaps," I said, carelessly, "Miles admired her; he may even have been
her lover."
She turned to me with a strange, glittering smile, a look I could not
fathom on her face.
"No," she replied: "Miles knew all about it; he was too sensible to be
caught by the insipid charms of a mere school-girl. Sir Barnard was not
so wise; he would have liked to join the two estates--he spoke of it
very often--but Miles never gave the matter a serious thought."
There was such unconcealed bitterness in her words and look--such malice
in that glittering smile, I turned away half in disgust.
"All our neighbors understand Lady Thesiger's politics," she continued;
"they have been a source of great amusement for some time."
"Miss Thesiger is not a day above eighteen," I said, fairly angry at
last; "so that there can not have been much time for manoeuvring."
"Ah!" she said, "how I admire you, Sir Edgar. That simple, noble faith
you have in women is most beautiful to me; one sees it so seldom in
those who have lived always among fashionable men and women."
A little speech that was intended to remind me how strange and fresh I
was to this upper world.
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