It was an odd thing, but as Lisbeth looked at her for a moment, she positively felt that she blushed faintly herself, blushed with a sense of being a trifle ashamed of Lisbeth Crespigny. It would be dreadful to have such a girl as this find her out; see her just as she was; read her record just as the past had left it. She was half inclined to put such a thing beyond the pale of possibility by drawing back.
“I want mamma to know you,” said Georgie. “Mamma is so fond of clever people, that it makes me wish, often enough, that I was not such an ordinary sort of girl.”
“We shall be delighted to see you, my dear,” said Mrs. Despard. “You may be sure of that. Come as soon, and as often as possible.”
And so the matter was decided, and Lisbeth had not the power to draw back, if she had determined to do so.
“You must have known Miss Crespigny quite a long time,” Georgie Esmond said, cheerfully, to Anstruthers, before she went away with her father. “Mrs. Despard said something about your having met her at that little Welsh place, Pen’yllan wasn’t it? And you haven’t been at Pen’yllan to stay for two or three years.”
“You ought not to have kept such a charming creature to yourself for three years, my boy,” said the old colonel.
“I should think not, indeed,” chimed in Miss Georgie. “It was selfish, and we are never selfish with him, are we, papa? We show him all our nice people, don’t we?”
“But,” said Anstruthers, “I have not seen Miss Crespigny once during the three years. After leaving Pen’yllan, we lost sight of each other, somehow or other, and did not meet again until a short time ago, and then it was quite by accident.”
“It was very careless of you to lose her then,” protested Miss Georgie. “I would not have lost her for the world. Gentlemen are so cold in their friendships. I don’t believe you ever really loved any of your friends in your life, Mr. Hector.”
“Ought I to have loved Miss Crespigny?” he demanded. “Ought I to begin to love her now? If you think it is my duty, I will begin to do it at once, Georgie.”
The girl shook her pretty head reproachfully.
“Oh!” she said, “that is always the way you talk, you grand young gentlemen. It is the fashion to be sarcastic, and not to admire anybody very much, or anything but yourselves,” saucily. “And you would sneer at your best friends rather than not be in the fashion. I am sure I don’t know what the world is coming to.”