"Very civil of her to take any interest in me," said Sir Charles. "I recollect a veiled person in the pony-carriage; but not a bit of interest did I take in her. All that concentrated elsewhere, and that sort of thing;" and he smiled at Mrs. Hammond in a manner that made Laurence's stern face grow sterner than ever. "Well, but about Torquay," continued Sir Charles. "I thought at first it was a tremendous nuisance your having to go out of town; but now I've got an idea which does not seem so bad. Town's horribly slow, you know, utterly empty; one does not know what to do with oneself; and so I've been suggesting to Georgie why not go down to Redmoor--our country place in Devon, you know--close to Torquay,--and one could fill the house with pleasant people, and you could come over from Torquay, and it would be very jolly indeed." He said it in an off-hand manner, but he nevertheless looked earnestly up into Mrs. Hammond's face, and Laurence Alsager's expression grew sterner than ever. Mrs. Hammond returned Sir Charles's glance, and said, "That would be thoroughly delightful! I was looking forward with horror, I confess, to a sojourn at Torquay. Those dreadful people in respirators always creeping about, and the stupid dinner-parties, where the talk is always about the doctor, and the quarter in which the wind is. But with you and Lady Mitford in the neighbourhood it would be quite another thing." "O yes, and we'd get some jolly people down there.--Alsager, you'd come?" "I don't think I'd come, and I'm anything but a jolly person. I must go to my father's at once." "Gad, Alsager, you seem to keep your father always ready to bring forward whenever you want to be misanthropical. You were to have gone to him a week ago." "Circumstances alter cases," said Mrs. Hammond with a short laugh; "and Colonel Alsager finds London more tolerable than he expected. Is it not so, Colonel?" "'Very tolerable, and not to be endured,' as Dogberry says, since I am about to leave it," said Laurence. ("She would like to draw me into a semi-confidence on that subject; but she sha'n't," thought he.) "No; but really, Alsager, do try and come, there's a good fellow; you can hold over your father until you want an excuse for not going to some place where you'll be bored. Now we won't bore you; we'll take down a rattling good team Tom Charteris and his wife--she plays and sings, and all that kind of thing, capitally; and Mrs. Masters, who's quiet to ride or drive--I don't mean that exactly, but she's available in two ways,--as a widow she can chaperon, and she's quite young and pretty enough to flirt on her own hook; and the Tyrrells--nice girls those; and Bligh and Winton,--Oh, and Dollamore! I'll ask Dollamore; he'd be just the man for such a party."