Sylvester by Georgette Heyer

more than ordinarily dowdy.
    She was startled to find him in the gallery, and checked on the threshold, exclaiming involuntarily: ‘Oh—!’
    He looked up in faint surprise. After a moment he put the periodical down, and said pleasantly: ‘It’s a bad guest, is it not, who comes down before his host? Let me draw a chair to the fire for you! It is smoking a trifle, but not enough, I am sure, to signify.’
    The acid note was faint, but it did not escape her. She came reluctantly down the gallery, saying as she seated herself in the chair he had pulled forward: ‘All the chimneys smoke at Austerby when the wind is in the northeast.’
    Having received abundant evidence of the truth of this statement in the bedchamber allotted to him, he did not question it, merely replying: ‘Indeed? Every house has its peculiarities, I fancy.’
    ‘D o none of the chimneys smoke in your house?’ she asked.
    ‘I believe they were used to, but it was found possible to remedy the fault,’ he said, conveniently forgetting how often in exasperation at finding the hall at Chance dense with smoke, he had sworn to replace its mediaeval fireplace with a modern grate.
    ‘How fortunate!’ remarked Phoebe.
    Silence fell. Miss Marlow sat gazing abstractedly at a Buhl cabinet; and his grace of Salford, unaccustomed to such treatment, eyed her in gathering resentment. He was much inclined to pick up the newspaper again, and was only deterred from doing so by the reflection that disgust at her want of conduct was no excuse for lowering his own standard of good manners. He said in the voice of one trying to set a bashful schoolgirl at her ease: ‘Your father tells me, Miss Marlow, that you are a notable horsewoman.’
    ‘Does he?’ she responded. ‘Well, he told us that you showed him the way with the Heythrop.’
    He glanced quickly down at her, but decided, after an instant, that this remark sprang from inanity. ‘I imagine I need not tell you that I did no such thing!’
    ‘Oh, no! I am very sure you did not,’ she said.
    He almost jumped; and being now convinced that this seeming gaucherie was deliberate began to feel as much interested as he was ruffled. Perhaps there was rather more to this little provincial than he had supposed, though why she should utter malicious remarks he was at a loss to understand. It was coming it too strong if she was piqued by his failure to recall on what occasion he had danced with her: did she think he could remember every insignificant girl with whom he had been obliged to stand up for one country dance? And what the devil did she mean by relapsing again into indifferent silence? He tried a new tack: ‘It is now your turn, Miss Marlow, to start a topic for conversation!’
    She withdrew her gaze from the cabinet, and directed it at him for a dispassionate moment. ‘I haven’t any conversation,’ she said.
    He hardly knew whether to be diverted or vexed; he was certainly intrigued, and had just decided that although he had not the remotest intention of offering for this outrageous girl, it might not be unamusing to discover what (if anything) lay behind her odd manners when Lady Marlow came into the gallery. Finding her guest there before her she pointed out to him that he was in advance of the hour, which nettled him into replying: ‘You must blame the wind for being in the northeast, ma’am.’
    The shaft went wide. ‘You mistake, Duke: no blame attaches to your being so early. Indeed, I consider it a good fault! My daughter has been entertaining you, I see. What have you been talking of together, I wonder?’
    ‘We can scarcely be said to have talked of anything,’ replied Sylvester. ‘Miss Marlow informs me that she has no conversation.’
    He glanced at Phoebe as he spoke, and encountered such a burning look of reproach that he repented, and tried to mend matters by adding with a laugh: ‘In point of fact, ma’am, Miss Marlow entered the room a bare minute before yourself, so we have had