Anthony Hope

“ Marland smiling the smile of triumphant sagacity.
“I was coming to you to-morrow,” cried Charlie the moment his canoe bumped against the stops.
“What do you mean, sir, by staying away a whole week? How could you?”
“I don’t know,” said Charlie. “You see, I couldn’t come till Calder——
“Oh, what about Calder?”
“He’s all right.”
“What? Miss—the girl you upset out of the canoe?”
“I think so,” said Charlie.
“Ah, well!” said Agatha. “But how very curious!” Then she smiled at Charlie, and asked,
“But what love can there be, Mr. Merceron, where there is deceit?” ”

“ She’d be a treasure of a wife to any man.”
“You’d better persuade Charlie of that, Lady Merceron.”
“Oh, Charlie never thinks of such a thing as marrying. He thinks of nothing but his antiquities.”
“Doesn’t he?” asked Calder, with apparent sympathy and a covert sad amusement.
“Mr. Wentworth,” said Mrs. Marland, approaching, “I believe it’s actually a fact that you’ve been here a week and have never yet been to the Pool.”
At this fateful word, Calder looked embarrassed, Charlie raised his head from the hammock, and Millie glanced involuntarily towards him. ”

“ Of the two Charlie seemed to feel the ennui much the more severely. Yet, while Mr. Wentworth spoke of returning to town in a few weeks, Charlie asseverated that he had paid his last visit to that revolting and disappointing place. Lady Merceron wished she had Uncle Van by her side to explain these puzzling inconsistencies. However, there was a bright side to the affair: the presence of the young men was a godsend to poor Millie, who, by reason of the depressed state of agriculture, had been obliged this year to go without her usual six weeks of London in the season. ”