Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/207

 than in the place of custom, and was in the habit of filling his dining room with people who could be useful. His desire was, of course, to conciliate those he invited by adopting a tone of business-like geniality, but he received no assistance from his wife, whose solitary aim seemed to be the unprovoked and contemptuous snubbing of her husband's guests.

"Loo-cill," said he one day after a banquet had ended in disaster, "I guess you are not particular to company. Guess, madame, you prefer solitude to some of the best-known persons in the United States."

"If you mean by that," replied Mrs, Clutterbuck, admiring herself in a mirror, "I do not care for the vulgar crowd you ask to dinner, you are certainly right. They are neither polished nor amusing."

"Strikes me, madame, that you seem to feel the want of the British aristocracy. You can't get on without them—that is so. It seems a pity that Lord Francis Onslow should be on the other side of the Atlantic. He would have been a decided acquisition to our family circle. See?"

"What do you mean?" asked Lucille, with her large eyes fixed upon the colonel menacingly. "What do you mean?"

"What I say," retorted the colonel. "I do not want, madame, any unpleasantness, but I give