“What’s this?” cried Romer, getting up and throwing his cigar out of the window. “You don’t mean to tell me--eh?--that this scarecrow is in love with Gladys?” The lady purred softly and replaced her spectacles. “Oh dear no! What an idea! Oh certainly, certainly not! But Gladys, you know, is not the only girl in Nevilton.” “Who the devil is it then? Not Vennie Seldom, surely?” “Look nearer, Mortimer, look nearer”; murmured the lady with sibilant sweetness. “Not Lacrima! You don’t mean to say--” “Why, dear, you needn’t be so surprised. You look more angry than if it had been Gladys herself. Yes, of course it is Lacrima. Hadn’t you observed it? But you dear men are so stupid, aren’t you, in these things?” Mrs. Romer rubbed one white hand over the other; and beamed upon her husband through her spectacles. Mr. Romer frowned. “But the Traffio girl is so, so--you know what I mean.” “So quiet and unimpressionable. Ah! my dear, it is just these quiet girls who are the very ones to be enjoying themselves on the sly.” “How far has this thing gone, Susan?” “Oh you needn’t get excited, Mortimer. It has not really ‘gone’ anywhere. It has hardly begun. In fact I have not the least authority for saying that she cares for him at all. I think she does a little, though. I _think_ she does. But one never can tell. I can, however, give you my word that he cares for her. And that is what we were talking about, weren’t we?” “I shall pack him off to my office in London,” said Mr. Romer. “He wouldn’t go, my dear. I tell you he wouldn’t go.” “But he can’t live on nothing.” “He can. He will. Sooner than leave Nevilton Maurice would eat grass. He would become lay-reader or something. He would sponge on Mrs. Seldom.” “Well, then he shall walk to Yeoborough and back every day. That will cool his blood for him.” “That will do him a great deal of good, dear; a great deal of good. Auntie always used to say that Maurice ought to take more exercise.” “Lickwit will exercise him! Make no mistake about that.” “How you do look round you, dear, in all these things! How impossible it is for anyone to fool _you_, Mortimer!” As Mrs. Romer uttered these words she glanced up at the Reynolds portrait above their heads, as if half-suspecting that such fawning flattery would bring down the mockery of the little Lady-in-Waiting. “I can’t help thinking Lacrima would make a very good wife to some hard-working sensible man,” Mr. Romer remarked. His lady looked a little puzzled. “It would be difficult to find so suitable a companion for Gladys,” she said. “Oh, of course I don’t mean till Gladys is married,” said the quarry-owner quickly. “By the way, when _is_ she going to accept that young fool of an Ilminster?” “All in good time, my dear, all in good time,” purred his wife. “He has not proposed to her yet.” “It’s very curious,” remarked Mr. Romer pensively, “that a young man of such high connections should _wish_ to marry our daughter.”