"By the way, I hope I am not presuming on the fact that you have consented to take this little excursion, Miss Vanrenen, but may I ask how _you_ contrive to appear each evening in a muslin frock? Those hold-alls on the motor are strictly utilitarian, and a mere man would imagine that muslin could not escape being crushed." "It doesn't. I have a maid iron it for me before dinner. At Hereford I shall receive a fresh one from London, and send this back by post. But fancy you noticing such a thing! Have you any sisters?" "Yes, one." "How old is she?" "Twenty-three." "Dear me! A year older than me. Oh, ought I to have said 'than I'? That always puzzles me." "You have Milton on your side. He wrote: Satan--than whom no higher sat. Still, it is generally allowed that Milton wrote bad grammar there." Cynthia was awed momentarily--a quotation from "Paradise Lost" always commands respect--so she harked back to an easier topic. "Is your sister married?" "Yes." "What is her husband?" "She married rather well, as the saying is. Her husband is a man named Scarland, and he is chiefly interested in pedigree cattle." "Let me see," she mused. "I seem to remember the name; it had something to do with fat cattle, too.... Scarland? Does he exhibit?" Medenham wished then that he had not been so glib with the Marquis of Scarland's pet occupation. "I have been in England so little during the past few years----" he began. "I hope you haven't quarreled with your sister?" she put in promptly. "What, quarrel with Betty? I?" And he laughed at the conceit, though he wondered what Cynthia would say if, on Monday, he deviated a few miles from the Hereford and Shrewsbury main road and showed her Scarland Towers and the park in which the marquis's prize stock were fattening. "Oh, is she so nice? And pretty, too, I suppose?" "People generally speak of her as good-looking. It is a recognized fact, I believe, that pretty girls usually have brothers not so favored----" "What, fishing now as well as rowing? Didn't I say you had a Norman aspect?" "Consisting largely of a scowl, I understand." "But a man is bound to look fierce sometimes. At least, my father does, though he is celebrated for his unchanging aspect, no matter what happens. Perhaps he may look like a Sphinx when he is carrying through what he calls 'a deal,' but I remember very well seeing lightning in his eye when an Italian prince was rude to me one day. We were at Pompeii, and this Prince Monte-something induced me to look at a horrid fresco under the pretense that it was very artistic. Without thinking what I was doing, I ran to father and complained about it. My goodness! I wonder the lava didn't melt again before he got through with his highness, who, after all, was a bit of a virtuoso, and may have really admired nasty subjects so long as they conformed to certain standards of art."