Page 199 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

with an easy turn of hand. Yet he none the less gracefully
kept in sight of the idea, dazzling to Henrietta, of her going
to stay with Lady Pensil in Bedfordshire. ‘I understand what
you want; you want to see some genuine English sport. The
Touchetts aren’t English at all, you know; they have their
own habits, their own language, their own food—some odd
religion even, I believe, of their own. The old man thinks it’s
wicked to hunt, I’m told. You must get down to my sister’s
in time for the theatricals, and I’m sure she’ll be glad to give
you a part. I’m sure you act well; I know you’re very clever.
My sister’s forty years old and has seven children, but she’s
going to play the principal part. Plain as she is she makes up
awfully well—I will say for her. Of course you needn’t act if
you don’t want to.’
In this manner Mr. Bantling delivered himself while
they strolled over the grass in Winchester Square, which,
although it had been peppered by the London soot, invited
the tread to linger. Henrietta thought her blooming, easy-
voiced bachelor, with his impressibility to feminine merit
and his splendid range of suggestion, a very agreeable man,
and she valued the opportunity he offered her. ‘I don’t know
but I would go, if your sister should ask me. I think it would
be my duty. What do you call her name?’
‘Pensil. It’s an odd name, but it isn’t a bad one.’
‘I think one name’s as good as another. But what’s her
rank?’
‘Oh, she’s a baron’s wife; a convenient sort of rank. You’re
fine enough and you’re not too fine.’
‘I don’t know but what she’d be too fine for me. What do

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