"I want you to tell me something about Miss Sewell," said Lord Fontenoy presently in Mrs. Watton's ear. He had been sitting silent beside her on the sofa for some little time, apparently toying with the evening papers, which Mrs. Watton had relinquished to him.
Mrs. Watton looked up, followed the direction of his eyes towards a settee in a distant corner of the room, and showed a half-impatient amusement.
"Letty? Oh! Letty's my niece--the daughter of my brother, Walter Sewell, of Helbeck. They live in Yorkshire. My brother has my father's place--a small estate, and rents very irregular. I often wonder how they manage to dress that child as they do. However, she has always had her own way since she was a foot high. As for my poor brother, he has been an invalid for the last ten years, and neither he nor his wife--oh! such a stupid woman!"--Mrs. Watton's energetic hands and eyes once more, called Heaven to witness--"have ever counted for much, I should say, in Letty's career. There is another sister, a little delicate, silent thing, that looks after them. Oh! Letty isn't stupid; I should think not. I suppose you're alarmed about Sir George. You needn't be. She does it with everybody."
The candid aunt pursued the conversation a little further, in the same tone of a half-caustic indulgence. At the end of it, however, Lord Fontenoy was still uneasy. He had only migrated to Malford House for the declaration of the poll, having spent the canvassing weeks mainly in another part of the division. And now, on this triumphant evening, he was conscious of a sudden sense of defective information, which was disagreeable and damping.
When bedtime came, Letty lingered in the drawing-room a little behind the other ladies, on the plea of gathering up some trifles that belonged to her. So that when George Tressady went out with her to light her candle for her in the gallery, they found themselves alone.
He had fallen into a sudden silence, which made her sweep him a look of scrutiny as she took her candlestick. The slim yet virile figure drawn to its full height, the significant, long-chinned face, pleased her senses. He might be plain--she supposed he was--but he was, nevertheless, distinguished, and extraordinarily alive.