Euphemia, yielding to an impulse, said with a short laugh: "I'm glad
Uncle Swithin doesn't ask me to go for drives."
Mrs. Small, to reassure her and smooth over any little awkwardness the
subject might have, replied: "My dear, he likes to take somebody well
dressed, who will do him a little credit. I shall never forget the drive
he took me. It was an experience!" And her chubby round old face was
spread for a moment with a strange contentment; then broke into pouts,
and tears came into her eyes. She was thinking of that long ago driving
tour she had once taken with Septimus Small.
James, who had relapsed into his nervous brooding in the little chair,
suddenly roused himself: "He's a funny fellow, Swithin," he said, but in
a half-hearted way.
Old Jolyon's silence, his stern eyes, held them all in a kind of
paralysis. He was disconcerted himself by the effect of his own
words--an effect which seemed to deepen the importance of the very
rumour he had come to scotch; but he was still angry.
He had not done with them yet--No, no--he would give them another rub or
two.
He did not wish to rub his nieces, he had no quarrel with them--a young
and presentable female always appealed to old Jolyon's clemency--but
that fellow James, and, in a less degree perhaps, those others, deserved
all they would get.
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