Darrell knew that the new minister disliked and despised Geoffrey
Cliffe; he was aware, too, that Cliffe returned these sentiments, and
was not unlikely to be found attacking Ashe in public before long on
certain points of foreign policy, where Cliffe conceived himself to be a
master. The meeting of the two men under the Grosvilles' roof struck
Darrell as curious. Why had Cliffe been invited by these very
respectable and straitlaced people the Grosvilles? Darrell could only
reflect that Lady Eleanor Cliffe, the traveller's mother, was probably
connected with them by some of those innumerable and ever-ramifying
links that hold together a certain large group of English families; and
that, moreover, Lady Grosville, in spite of philanthropy and
Evangelicalism, had always shown a rather pronounced taste in
"lions"--of the masculine sort. Of the women to be met with at Grosville
Park, one could be certain. Lady Grosville made no excuses for her own
sex. But she was a sufficiently ambitious hostess to know that agreeable
parties are not constructed out of the saints alone. The men, therefore,
must provide the sinners; and of some of the persons then most in vogue
she was careful not to know too much.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133