The Cabinet Minister - LightNovelsOnl.com
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VALENTINE WHITE.
Well?
BROOKE TWOMBLEY.
I think it will pretty considerably wound your susceptibilities to hear that my sister Imogen is being presented by the Mater this afternoon.
VALENTINE WHITE.
[In horror.] Presented!
BROOKE TWOMBLEY.
Presented at Court--Drawing-Room, you know.
VALENTINE WHITE.
How dare they! poor little child!
BROOKE TWOMBLEY.
Haw, haw! If you'll wait a few minutes you'll see an imposing display of trains and feathers. Some of them are coming on here after the ceremony to drink tea, I believe.
VALENTINE WHITE.
Trains and feathers! Good gracious, Brooke, Imogen must have grown up!
BROOKE TWOMBLEY.
Here's her portrait--what?
VALENTINE WHITE.
[Staring at the portrait.] I am right, Brooke--she _has_ grown up!
BROOKE TWOMBLEY.
Haw!
VALENTINE WHITE.
Eight years ago she was a romp, with a frock that always had a tear in it, and a head like a cornfield in the wind. Just look at this! While I've been away they've given her a new frock and brushed her hair. What an awful change!
[PROBYN appears at the conservatory entrance.]
PROBYN.
Lady Euphemia Vibart.
[LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART, a handsome, distinguished-looking, and elegantly dressed girl of about twenty, enters. She scarcely notices VALENTINE, who bows formally.]
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
No one has returned yet, Brooke?
BROOKE TWOMBLEY.
Effie, don't you recollect Mr. White?
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
Oh! how do you do? [She shakes hands with him in an affected manner.] We are distantly related, I remember.
VALENTINE WHITE.
Lady Euphemia, I join you in remembering the relations.h.i.+p--and the distance.
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
Oh, I don't mean that, Mr. White. At any rate, we were excellent friends many years ago when our cousin Imogen used to give us tea in her school-room. She will be _too_ rejoiced at your return.
BROOKE TWOMBLEY.
[At the window.] Hullo, I think pa has come home.
VALENTINE WHITE.
Good-by, Lady Euphemia.
BROOKE TWOMBLEY.
I say, Effie, Mr. White won't stay.
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
[Indifferently.] What a pity!
BROOKE TWOMBLEY.
He has turned against civilization, you know, and has become a sort of pleasant cannibal.
LADY EUPHEMIA VIBART.
A cannibal! That is _too_ interesting. Pray remain, Mr. White. My brother, Lord Drumdurris, is on duty at the Palace to-day and is coming on here. We all knew each other as children. He will be _too_ delighted.
VALENTINE WHITE.
I recollect Lord Vibart, as he then was, very well. He once burnt me with a red-hot poker.
