“Do you admire Lord Newmarch very much?” Edgar whispered to Alice, who was eating her fish very sedately by his side. Poor Alice grew very red, and gave a little choking cough, and put down her fork, and cleared her throat. She looked as if she had been caught doing something which was very improper, and dropped her fork as if it burned her. And it was a moment before she could speak. “Oh yes, Mr. Arden,” was the reply she made, giving a shy glance at him, and then looking down upon her plate. “But don’t you think he looks a little too much as if the fate of the country rested on his head?” said Edgar, valiantly trying again. “Tell me, please, is he a bore?” “Oh no, Mr. Arden!” said Alice, and she looked at her plate again. “Does she want to finish her fish, I wonder?” Edgar asked himself; and then he turned to Mrs. Buxton, to leave his younger companion at liberty. But Mrs. Buxton had tackled Lord Newmarch, and they were discussing the question of compulsory education, with much authoritative condescension on the gentleman’s part, and eager interest on the lady’s. Edgar was not uninterested in such questions, but he had come to the Red House with a light-hearted intention of amusing himself, and he sighed for Gussy Thornleigh and her gossip, or anything that should be pleasant and nonsensical. Alice had returned to her fish, not that she cared for the fish, but because it was the only thing for her to do. If Edgar had but known it, she was quite disposed to go on saying, “Oh yes, Mr. Arden,” and “Oh no, Mr. Arden,” all the time of dinner, without caring in the least for the _entrees_, or even for the jellies and creams and other dainties with which the banquet wound up. But then he did not know that, and could not but imagine that her fish was what she liked best. In his despair, however, he caught Mrs. Pimpernel’s eye, who was looking bland but disturbed, saying “There is no doubt of that,” and “Education is very necessary,” and “I am sure I am quite of Lord Newmarch’s opinion,” at intervals. She was amiable, but she was not happy with that wise young nobleman at her right hand, and such an appreciative audience as Mrs. Buxton beside him. Edgar glanced across at her, and caught her look of distress. “I do not care anything about education,” he said, firing a friendly gun, as it were, across her bows. “I hate it when I am at dinner.” And then Mrs. Pimpernel gave him a look which said more than words. “Oh, fie,” she said, leaning across the corner, “you know you should not say that. Do you think we English are behind in light conversation, Mr. Arden? For more important matters I know we can defy anybody,” and she gave Lord Newmarch an eloquent look, which he returned with a little bow; “but I daresay,” said Mrs. Pimpernel, with that cloud of uneasiness on her brow, “we are behind in chitter-chatter and table-talk.”