"You are staying at Hale, I suppose?"
"No; Lady Laura is away, you know."
"Ah--to be sure; I had forgotten."
"I am spending a few days with a bachelor friend in Holborough. I am off to
Germany before the week is out."
Mr. Granger was not sorry to hear this. He was not jealous of George
Fairfax. If anybody had suggested the possibility of his entertaining such
a sentiment, that person would have experienced the full force of Daniel
Granger's resentment; but this was just the one man whom he fancied his
wife might have cared for a little before her marriage. He was not a man
given to petty jealousies; and of late, since the birth of his son,
there had been growing up in his mind a sense of security in his wife's
fidelity--her affection even. The union between them had seemed very
perfect after the advent of the child; and the master of Arden Court felt
almost as if there were nothing upon this earth left for him to desire. But
he was a little puzzled by the presence of George Fairfax, nevertheless.
Holborough was a small place; and he began to speculate immediately upon
the identity of this bachelor friend of Mr. Fairfax's. It was not a
garrison town. The young men of the place were for the most part small
professional men--half-a-dozen lawyers and doctors, two or three curates, a
couple of bankers' sons, an auctioneer or two, ranking vaguely between the
trading and professional classes, and the sons of tradesmen.
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