'Our walks and drives have been very pleasant.

Mr.Hammond is extremely clever, and can talk about everything.' Her colour heightened ever so little as she spoke of him, an indication duly observed by Lady Maulevrier.
'No doubt the man is clever; all adventurers are clever; and you have sense enough to see that this man is an adventurer--a mere sponge and toady of Maulevrier's.' 'There is nothing of the sponge or the toady in his manner,' protested Lady Lesbia, with a still deeper blush, the warm glow of angry feeling.
'My dear child, what do you know of such people--or of the atmosphere in which they are generated?
The sponge and toady of to-day is not the clumsy fawning wretch you have read about in old-fashioned novels.

He can flatter adroitly, and feed upon his friends, and yet maintain a show of manhood and independence.

I'll wager Mr.Hammond's trip to Canada did not cost him sixpence, and that he hardly opened his purse all the time he was in Germany.' 'If my brother wants the company of a friend who is much poorer than himself, he must pay for it,' argued Lesbia.

'I think Maulevrier is lucky to have such a companion as Mr.Hammond.' Yet, even while she so argued, Lady Lesbia felt in some manner humiliated by the idea that this man who so palpably worshipped her was too poor to pay his own travelling expenses.
Poets and philosophers may say what they will about the grandeur of plain living and high thinking; but a young woman thinks better of the plain liver who is not compelled to plainness by want of cash.