Sir Richard read his
Times for a while. Mary continued to write checks
for the board wages of the servants left at home, and to give directions
for the beating of carpets and cleaning of curtains. It was dull work,
and she detested it.
Presently Sir Richard rose, with a stretch. He was a tall old man, with
a shock of white hair and very black eyes. A victim to certain obscure
forms of gout, he was in character neither stupid nor inhuman, but he
suffered from the usual drawbacks of his class--too much money and too
few ideas. He came abroad every year, reluctantly. He did not choose to
be left behind by county neighbors whose wives talked nonsense about
Botticelli. And Mary would have it. But Sir Richard's tours were
generally one prolonged course of battle between himself and all foreign
institutions; and if it was Mary who drove him forth, it was Mary also
who generally hurried him home.
"Who was it you saw last night in that ridiculous singing affair?" he
asked, as he put the fire together.
"Kitty Ashe--and her mother," said Mary--after a moment--still writing.
"Her mother!--what, that disreputable woman?"
"They weren't in the same gondola.
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