Underwood's eyes, though it did not pass her quiet lips. It was to
her that he answered, 'Yes, my dear--Tom; I have little doubt that it
is he. He was a very rich man when last I heard of him.'
'Is that the man at Vale Leston?' whispered Alda to Felix.
'Oh, I hope he is not coming here to insult us.'
'Bosh!' said Felix; 'that man's name is Fulbert. Listen, if you want
to hear.'
'Twenty years ago,' continued Mr. Underwood, 'I thought myself a
prodigiously fine fellow--with my arms full of prizes at Harrow, and
my Trinity scholarship--and could just, in the plenitude of my
presumption, extend a little conceited patronage to that unlucky
dunce, Tom Underwood, the lag of every form, and thankful for a high
stool at old Kedge's. And now my children view a cold fowl as an
unprecedented monster, while his might, I imagine, revel in 'pates
de foie gras.'
'O Papa, but we like you so much better as you are!' cried Geraldine.
'Eh, Cherry!' said Mr. Underwood, 'what say you? Shouldn't you like
me better if I were buying that king beech tree, and all the rest of
it?'
Cherry edged nearer, mastered his hand, and looked up in his face
with a whole soul of negation in her wistful eyes.
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