"Did I not say, yesterday, that Monsieur Varbarriere would vote for the country, in our town or country argument, if he were here?"
"Oh! did you? Yes, I believe you did. I was not listening."
"And which side, pray, Lady Jane, would you have taken in that ancient debate?" inquired Varbarriere, who somehow felt constrained to address her.
"What! neither town nor country--and how then?" inquired Varbarriere, with a shrug and a smile.
"I think there is as much hypocrisy and slander in one as the other, and I should have a new way--people living like the Chinese, in boats, and never going on shore."
Varbarriere laughed--twiddled a bit of bread between his finger and thumb, and leaned back, and looked down, still smiling, by the edge of his plate; and was there not a little flush under the dark brown tint of his face?
"That would be simply prison," ejaculated Miss Blunket.
"Yes, prison; and is not anything better than liberty with its liabilities? Why did Lady Hester Stanhope go into exile in the East, and why do sane men and women go into monasteries?"
Varbarriere looked at her with an odd kind of interest, and sighed without knowing it; and he helped himself curiously to sweetbread, a minute later, and for a time his share in the conversation flagged.
Lady Jane, he thought, was looking decidedly better than when he left--very well, in fact--very well indeed--not at all like a person with anything pressing heavily on her mind.
He glanced at her again. She was talking to old Sir Paul Blunket in a bold careless way, which showed no sign of hidden care or fear.
"Have you been to town since?" inquired Sir Jekyl, who happened to catch Varbarriere's eye at that moment, and availed himself of a momentary lull in what we term the conversation, to put his question.
"No; you think I have been pleasuring, but it was good honest business, I assure you."
"Lady Alice here fancied you might have seen the General, and learned something about his plans," continued Sir Jekyl.
"What General?--Lennox--eh?" inquired Varbarriere.
"Yes. What's your question, Lady Alice?" said the Baronet, turning to that lady, and happily not observing an odd expression in Varbarriere's countenance.
"No question; he has not been to London," answered the old lady, drawing her shawl which she chose to dine in about her, chillily.