"People often say--_I_ do, I know--what they mean without intending it," she answered, carelessly. "I _know_ you would not make a rude speech--I'm sure of that; and as to what we say accidentally, can it signify very much? Mr. Verney said he was coming back after the speeches, and Lord Verney, he said, didn't he? I wonder you don't look in at the town-hall. You could make us laugh by telling all about it, by-and-by--that is, if we happen to see you again." "Of _course_ you should see me again." "I meant this evening; to-morrow, perhaps, we should," said she. "If I went there; but I'm not going. I think that old fellow, Lord Verney, Cleve's uncle, is an impertinent old muff. Every one knows he's a muff, though he _is_ Cleve's uncle; he gave me just one finger to-day, and looked at me as if I ought to be anywhere but where I was. I have as good a right as _he_ to be in Cardyllian, and I venture to say the people like me a great deal better than they like him, or ever will." "And so you punish him by refusing your countenance to this--what shall I call it?--gala." "Oh! of course you take the Verneys' part against me; they are swells, and I am a nobody." He thought Miss Agnes coloured a little at this remark. The blood grows sensitive and capricious when people are ailing, and a hint is enough to send it to and fro; but she said only,-- "I never heard of the feud before. I thought that you and Mr. Verney were very good friends." "So we were; so we _are_--Cleve and I. Of course, I was speaking of the old lord. Cleve, of course, no one ever hears anything but praises of Cleve. I suppose I ought to beg your pardon for having talked as I did of old Lord Verney; it's petty treason, isn't it, to talk lightly of a Verney, in Cardyllian or its neighbourhood?" said Sedley, a little sourly. "I don't know _that_; but I dare say, if you mean to ask leave to fish or shoot, it might be as well not to attack them." "Well, I shan't in your hearing." And with this speech came a silence. "I don't think, somehow, that Cleve is as frank with me as he used to be. Can you imagine any reason?" said Tom, after an interval. "_I?_ No, upon my word--unless you are as frank to him about his uncle, as you have been with me." "Well, I'm _not_. I never spoke to him about his uncle. But Shrapnell, who tells me all the news of Cardyllian while I'm away"--this was pointedly spoken--"said, I thought, that he had not been down here ever since the Malory people left, and I find that he was here for a week--at least at Ware--last autumn, for a fortnight; and he never told me, though he knew, for I said so to him, that I thought that he had stayed away; and I think that was very odd." "He may have thought that he was not bound to account to you for his time and movements," said Miss Agnes. "Well, he _was_ here; Mrs. Jones was good enough to tell me so, though other people make a secret of it. _You_ saw him here, I dare say."