"Neglected, Violet! How can you say such a thing? When Manotti's bill for the monument was over nine hundred pounds."
"Oh, mamma, there is more love in a bunch of primroses that my own hand gathers and carries to the grave than in all the marble or granite in Westminster Abbey."
"My dear, for poor people wild flowers are very nice, and show good feeling--but the rich must have monuments. There could be nothing too splendid for your dear papa," added the widow tearfully.
She was always tearful when she spoke of her dear Edward, even now; though she was beginning to find that life had some savour without him.
"No," said Vixen, "but I think papa will like the flowers best."
"Then if all is well, Miss McCroke," pursued Mrs. Tempest, "we will go back at the end of November. It would be a pity to lose the season here."
"What do we care about the season, mamma?" she exclaimed. "Can it matter to us whether there are two or three thousand extra people in the place? It only makes the King's Road a little more uncomfortable."
"My dear Violet, at your age gaiety is good for you," said Mrs. Tempest.
"Yes, and, like most other things that are good, it's very disagreeable," retorted Vixen.
"And now, about this ball," pursued Mrs. Tempest, taking up a dropped stitch in the previous argument; "I really think we ought to go, if it were only on Violet's account. Don't you, Maria?"
Mrs. Tempest always called her governess Maria when she was anxious to conciliate her.
"Violet is old enough to enter society, certainly," said Miss McCroke, with some deliberation; "but whether a public ball----"
"If it's on my account, mamma, pray don't think of going," protested Vixen earnestly. "I hate the idea of a ball--I hate----"
"Captain Winstanley," announced Forbes, in the dusky end of the drawing-room by the door.
"He has saved me the trouble of finishing my sentence," muttered Vixen.
The visitor came smiling though the dusk into the friendly glow of the fire. He shook hands with Mrs. Tempest with the air of an old friend, went over to the window to shake hands with Miss McCroke, and then came back to Vixen, who gave him a limp cold hand, with an indifference that was almost insolent, while Argus lifted his head an inch or so from the carpet and saluted him with a suppressed growl. Whether this arose from a wise instinct in the animal, or from a knowledge that his mistress disliked the gentleman, would be too nice a point to decide.