"As you have for croquet and for everything else, I think," he
said; "only you are so quiet about your resources. But I am very glad you
have not that grand sultana manner of Lady Geraldine Challoner's. I really
can't think how any man can stand it, especially such a man as George
Fairfax."
"Why 'especially'?" asked Miss Fermor, curiously.
"Well, I don't know exactly how to explain my meaning to a lady--because
he has knocked about the world a good deal--seen a great deal of life, in
short. _Il a vecu_, as the French say. He is not the kind of man to be any
woman's slave, I should think; he knows too much of the sex for that. He
would take matters with rather a high hand, I should fancy. And then Lady
Geraldine, though she is remarkably handsome, and all that kind of thing,
is not in the first freshness of her youth. She is nearly as old as
George, I should say; and when a woman is the same age as a man, it is
her misfortune to seem much older. No, Miss Fermor, upon my word, I don't
consider them fairly matched."
"The lady has rank," said Barbara Fermor.
"Yes, of course. It will be Mr. and Lady Geraldine Fairfax. There are some
men who care for that kind of thing; but I don't suppose George is one of
them. The Fairfaxes are of a noble old Scotch family, you know, and hold
themselves equal to any of our nobility."
"When is Mr. Fairfax expected at the Castle?"
"Not till to-night.
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