Having performed that duty he walked away without waiting for a reply;
and seated himself with his letter, at one of the writing-tables in the
library.

"Sir Patrick is quite right about the young men of the present day,"
said Blanche, turning to Arnold. "Here is this one asks me a question,
and doesn't wait for an answer. There are three more of them, out in
the garden, who have been talking of nothing, for the last hour, but the
pedigrees of horses and the muscles of men. When we are married, Arnold,
don't present any of your male friends to me, unless they have turned
fifty. What shall we do till luncheon-time? It's cool and quiet in here
among the books. I want a mild excitement--and I have got absolutely
nothing to do. Suppose you read me some poetry?"

"While _he_ is here?" asked Arnold, pointing to the personified
antithesis of poetry--otherwise to Geoffrey, seated with his back to
them at the farther end of the library.

"Pooh!" said Blanche. "There's only an animal in the room. We needn't
mind _him!_"

"I say!" exclaimed Arnold. "You're as bitter, this morning, as Sir
Patrick himself. What will you say to Me when we are married if you talk
in that way of my friend?"

Blanche stole her hand into Arnold's hand and gave it a little
significant squeeze. "I shall always be nice to _you,_" she
whispered--with a look that contained a host of pretty promises in
itself. Arnold returned the look (Geoffrey was unquestionably in the
way!). Their eyes met tenderly (why couldn't the great awkward brute