“Oh, no,” said Matilda, “indeed I always say frankly that I like gentlemen’s society much the best. Women are so jealous of you, and so nasty in their ways. I don’t pretend to be very clever, but I do like to be with some one who is clever. And one feels at once the superiority when one hears gentlemen talk. It is so different from our chitter-chatter. Isn’t it now? I like to have some one I can look up to,” said the woman, who was a fool, looking up, with all the skill of her folly, into the face of the foolish young man who was intellectual. Oh, poor Johnnie! He had a dim notion in some corner of his mind that what she said was silly, and yet he was ready to fall down at her feet and worship her. The silliness quite achieved his downfall. He had been wavering, all but conquered; but now the final _coup_ was given to him. He murmured something in sudden delirium, he did not quite know what. Neither did Matilda know what it was; but she knew that she might henceforward guide him at her pleasure through all the ways of imbecility. She had snatched him from Marjory, too, which was a great addition to the pleasure. Marjory was clever, and Verna was clever; but here was something they could not do. The conversation was interrupted at this beatific moment by the appearance of Verna, important and full of business as usual. “Dr. Murray is in the drawing-room,” she said, “and you must come and see him, Matty. They are the first people that have done more than leave cards; and you would not see them when they called last time. He is the clergyman. You must come now.” “Clergyman? I suppose you mean the Scotch Minister,” said Matilda. “Why should I go? I have nothing to do with him. You don’t suppose I shall go to his miserable old conventicle. Go and see him yourself, Verna. You understand that sort of people. I am engaged; am not I engaged, Mr. Hepburn?” she said, smiling upon her new slave. But Johnnie was not destitute of the prejudices of a man born in the East Neuk. “Don’t you think you could see him?” he asked with hesitation. “He is a man of some distinction. He is a very well-known man, and he was a great friend of Mr. Heriot’s--” “Oh, one never will hear an end of the old family,” said Matilda, “but if he is such a great person I suppose I must go. I always thought a Scotch Minister was a kind of Dissenter--oh, do tell me, Mr. Hepburn!--just for the poor people, a sort of man that would not take the liberty of calling. I am so ignorant, don’t be disgusted. I know I am silly; but I will pay such attention to what you say.”