“Only a few thousands that weren’t worth the keeping,” said Frothingham, a faint gleam of satisfaction appearing in the eye that was shielded by the monocle--he liked to remember his “career,” and he liked the women to remind him of it in this flattering way. “All I really got was the bill for the governor’s larks, and his governor’s, and his governor’s governor’s. It’s what I call rotten unfair--jolly rotten unfair. The fiddling for them--the bill for me.”
“Buck up, Artie,” said Gwen, stroking him gently with her riding whip. “See how Georgie has faced it. And perhaps you won’t draw such a bad one, either. She couldn’t be worse than Cadbrough.”
“But I want _you_, Gwen. I’m used to you, you know--and that’s everything in a wife. I hate surprises, and these American beggars are full of ’em.”
Evelyn came back. “Go away somewhere, both of you,” she said. “Charley Sidney’s just driving up. I wish to talk with him about the States.”
Gwen paled and flushed; Frothingham grunted and scowled. They rose, made a short cut across the garden, and were hidden by the left wing of the house. Almost immediately the servant announced “Mr. Sidney,” and stood deferentially aside for a tall, thin American, elaborately Anglicised in look and dress, and, as it soon appeared, in accent. He had a narrow, vain face, browned and wrinkled by hard riding in hard weather in those early morning hours that should be spent in bed if one has lingered in the billiard room with the drinks and smokes until past midnight.
“Ah, Lady Evelyn!” He shook hands with her, and bowed and smirked. “I’m positively perishing for tea.”
“Ah, yes--to be sure. I see there is whiskey.”
Evelyn’s manner, which had been frank and equal before her friend and her brother, had frozen for Sidney into a shy stiffness not without a faint suggestion of superior addressing inferior. She had known Sidney for the ten years he had lived within two miles of Beauvais House, but--well, he wasn’t “one of us” exactly; he had a way of bowing and of pronouncing titles that discouraged equality. The conversation dragged in dreary, rural fashion through gossip of people, dogs, and horses, until she said:
“He’s marrying--a Miss Dowie, of New York. Do you know her?”