So John Hammond hung about the luxurious drawing-room at Fellside in a manner which his friend Maulevrier ridiculed as unmanly.
'I had no idea you were such a tame cat,' he said: 'if when we were salmon fishing in Canada anybody had told me you could loll about a drawing-room all day listening to a girl squalling and reading novels, I shouldn't have believed a word of it.'
'We had plenty of roughing on the shores of the St. Lawrence,' answered Hammond. 'Summer idleness in a drawing-room is an agreeable variety.'
It is not to be supposed that John Hammond's state of mind could long remain unperceived by the keen eyes of the dowager. She saw the gradual dawning of his love, she saw the glow of its meridian. She was pleased to behold this proof of Lesbia's power over the heart of man. So would she conquer the man foredoomed to be her husband when the coming time should bring them together. But agreeable as the fact of this first conquest might be, as an evidence of Lesbia's supremacy among women, the situation was not without its peril; and Lady Maulevrier felt that she could no longer defer the duty of warning her granddaughter. She had wished, if possible, to treat the thing lightly to the very last, so that Lesbia should never know there had been danger. She had told her, a few days ago, that those drives, and walks with the two young men were undignified, even although guarded by the Fräulein's substantial presence.
'You are making yourself too much a companion to Maulevrier and his friend,' said the dowager. 'If you do not take care you will grow like Mary.'
'I would do anything in the world to avoid _that_,' replied Lesbia. 'Our walks and drives have been very pleasant. Mr. Hammond is extremely clever, and can talk about everything.'
Her colour heightened ever so little as she spoke of him, an indication duly observed by Lady Maulevrier.
'No doubt the man is clever; all adventurers are clever; and you have sense enough to see that this man is an adventurer--a mere sponge and toady of Maulevrier's.'
'There is nothing of the sponge or the toady in his manner,' protested Lady Lesbia, with a still deeper blush, the warm glow of angry feeling.
'My dear child, what do you know of such people--or of the atmosphere in which they are generated? The sponge and toady of to-day is not the clumsy fawning wretch you have read about in old-fashioned novels. He can flatter adroitly, and feed upon his friends, and yet maintain a show of manhood and independence. I'll wager Mr. Hammond's trip to Canada did not cost him sixpence, and that he hardly opened his purse all the time he was in Germany.'