Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/96

 match for him. He’ll use you readily enough, but he never does anything for anybody without looking for a return. We don’t want these gentry in England.”

“I met him,” I answered. “I liked him, I was sorry for him. And, if I try to shew him a little kindness, I really cannot allow you, Brackenbury, to make yourself a ruler and a judge. Do I gather that you and Ruth would prefer not to dine?”

“If it’s money you want, I’d almost pay you not to meet him. That’s how I feel about it.”

All this, you understand, about a man he hardly knew by sight! . . . I found it in my heart to wish that Brackenbury had been present when the Erskines dined. Nothing could have been more charming. He talked too wonderfully about music; I asked him a little about himself, he asked me about myself—that delightful first exchange when you are laying the foundations of friendship. Having no children himself, he was of course most anxious to hear about Will—what he had done before the war, where he was in France at present, what he proposed to do when the war was over. . . As he had introduced the subject, I told him frankly that I found great difficulty in making up my mind and should be truly