“I have already told you,” he went on, a little chilled by her manner, “of my disgust at the snobbishness of those people who, because of my superior rank, loaded me with attentions, and almost ignored the existence of my handsome friend. At a house where we recently visited, four pretty girls, set on, I suppose, by their parents, hardly so much as talked to him, and made a dead set at me. Now, this was ridiculously unnatural, for my friend is the most superbly handsome man I have ever seen, a giant in height, and one of the finest athletes in the University, with a face, too, which cannot fail to attract women, to whom, however, I must own, he is extremely indifferent.” “Your friend, then,” interposed Sir Philip, who was keenly watching the effect of this talk upon his daughter, “has no intention of marrying at present, I presume?” “So far from it,” Lord Carthew returned, “he has not the slightest wish to settle down in matrimony for many years to come. He has the bad taste, indeed, not to think about women at all; which is, perhaps,” he added, with a laugh, “considering Hilary’s remarkable natural advantages, a very good thing for us plain little fellows.” CHAPTER X. FATHER AND DAUGHTER. Lord Carthew spoke as he did of his friend’s prospects and intentions with perfect frankness and loyalty, never for one moment suspecting the effect which his words might produce in the mind of Stella Cranstoun. He really believed that Hilary had the bad taste to dislike that young lady, and he was certainly not ill-pleased by such a manifestation of feeling on the part of his handsome friend. Not for an instant did the suspicion cross his mind that two persons present were listening with intense, even breathless, interest to his careless words. “I must go up to town the first thing to-morrow morning,” he said, presently, “to find out how Hilary is. Of course he is enormously strong, but for that very reason he is the more likely to overestimate his powers of recuperation. Early in the autumn he will be going out to settle in Canada on a farm which has been left to him, and I believe he proposes to spend some years there, so that we shall not long have a chance of being together. He is a capital business man, as long-headed and keen-sighted over a bargain as most Yorkshiremen are, and I have no doubt that he will carry out his expressed determination, and make the property pay.” “By which time, probably, he will modify his views on the marriage state sufficiently to permit of his mating with some honest, robust person in his own rank of life, who will rear for him a squarely built and solid brood of Anglo-Canadian olive-branches,” remarked Sir Philip, still with his eyes furtively watching his daughter.