" says Miss Maliphant, giving him a playful flick
with her fan.

"Well, what would you have me say?" persists Beauclerk still lightly,
with wonderful lightness, in fact, considering the weight of that
playful tap upon his bent knuckles. "That we shall not be sorry? Would
you have me lie, then? Fie, fie, Miss Maliphant! The truth, the truth,
and nothing but the truth! At all risks and hazards!" here he almost
imperceptibly sends flying a shaft from his eyes at Joyce, who receives
it with a blank stare. "We shall, I assure you, be desolated when you
go, specially Isabel."

This last pretty little speech strikes Dysart as being specially neat:
This putting the onus of the regret on to Isabel's shoulders. All
through, Beauclerk has been careful to express himself as one who is an
appreciative friend of Miss Maliphant, but nothing more; yet so guarded
are these expressions, and the looks that accompany them, that Miss
Maliphant might be pardoned if she should read a warmer feeling in them.

A sensation of disgust darkens his brow.

"I must say you are all very nice to me," says the heiress complacently.
Poor soul! No doubt, she believes in every bit of it, and a large course
of kow-towing from the world has taught her the value of her pile.
"However," with true Manchester grace, "there's no need for howling over
it. We'll all meet again, I dare say, some time or other. For one thing,
Lady Baltimore has asked me to come here again after Christmas;
February, I dare say."

"So glad!" murmurs Joyce rather vaguely.

"So you see," said Miss Maliphant with ponderous gayety, "that we are
all bound to put in a second good time together; you're coming, I know,
Mr. Dysart, and Miss Kavanagh is always here, and Mr. Beauclerk "--with
a languishing glance at that charming person, who returns it in the most
open manner--"has promised me that he will be here to meet me."

"Well, if I can, you know," says he, now beaming at her.

"How's that?" says the heiress, turning promptly upon him. It is strange
how undesirable the very richest heiress can be at times. "Why, it's
only just this instant that you told me nothing would keep you away from
the Court next spring. What d'ye mean?"

She brings him to book in a most uncompromising fashion; a fashion that
betrays unmistakably her plebeian origin. Dysart, listening, admires her
for it. Her rough and ready honesty seems to him preferable to the best
bred shuffling in the world.

"Did I