CHAPTER 11Noel Merton had passed an agreeable evening with Mrs. Arbuthnot. Miss Arbuthnot had gone to supper at the Vicarage to talk about pictures with Colonel Crofts, so Noel and his hostess were alone and made a very comfortable and amusing job of it. And if any reader hopes that they were thinking of an elopement we may as well say at once that they were thinking of no such thing, for Noel was very fond of his Lydia and Mrs. Arbuthnot had carried through at least thirty-six delightful little flirtations without anyone’s heart being even scratched, least of all her own. Noel had also made many excursions into Pays du Tendre in his time, but always with a first-class return ticket and very pleasant recollections of some pretty verbal fencing. He was a good deal older than Lydia and the c
