“Oh, it’s only Effie’s evening things,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot, who was beginning to do some rather greasy washing-up. “She can’t dine with the Mertons in her bird things. Colonel Crofts is taking me. Good-bye till the evening.”
“You’ll like Roddy Wicklow,” said Mr. Wickham as they drove towards Nutfield. “He’s a quiet fellow. Never says much. Nor does his wife, but she’s a nice little thing. Her mother is Mrs. Barton who writes those books about the Borgias and what not. A bit too highbrow for me,” with which appraisal of Mrs. Barton’s scholarly and exhaustingly documented historical novels about Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Miss Arbuthnot cordially agreed, as she did upon many subjects with Mr. Wickham.
“Funny Wicklow being Wicklow and my being Wickham,” said that gentl
