Why should he go on talking? he thought. Miss Vanderpoel was a cracking
handsome girl, but she was too clever for him, and he had to think
of all sorts of new things to say when he talked to her. And--well, a
fellow could never imagine himself stretched out on the grass, puffing
happily away at a pipe, with a girl like that sitting near him,
smiling--the hot turf smelling almost like hay, the hot blue sky curving
overhead, and both the girl and himself perfectly happy--chock full
of joy--though neither of them were saying anything at all. You could
imagine it with some girls--you DID imagine it when you wakened early on
a summer morning, and lay in luxurious stillness listening to the birds
singing like mad.
Lady Jane was a nicely-behaved girl, and she tried to keep her
following blue eyes fixed on the grass, or on Lady Anstruthers, or
Miss Vanderpoel, but there was something like a string, which sometimes
pulled them in another direction, and once when this had happened--quite
against her will--she was terrified to find Lady Alanby's glass lifted
and fixed upon her.
As Lady Alanby's opinion of Mrs. Manners was but a poor one, and as
Mrs. Manners was stricken dumb by her combined dislike and awe of Lady
Alanby, a slight stiffness might have settled upon the gathering if
Betty had not made an effort.
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