ONE:"Miss Effie, perhaps," Fred suggested.Well, and I dare say it wont be long before you are finely surprised then. Pray tell me what Lord{242} Inverbroom says. I am sure it is about the opening of the hospital to-morrow. I have practised my royal curtsey. I can get down and up quite easily, indeed Mamma thought it most graceful, and she does not praise without reason. Perhaps Lord Inverbroom wants me to come down to the bottom of the steps and make my curtsey there. If he insists, of course I will do it, for naturally he knows more about court etiquette than I do at present. I will certainly bow to his superior knowledge.
ONE:For his part he had known so many of those evenings, when the dinner-party went away precisely at half-past ten, and he was left to hear long comments by his wife on the soup and the{142} beef and the grouse and the pudding and the savoury, and what Dr Inglis said, and what Mrs Fyson thought. He hoped, when he first came back, after seeing Norah fade into the snow-storm, that he was to be regaled with such reminiscences, but hoped rather against hope. No reminiscences came to his aid, and he began to be aware, from the ice-bound conditions, that he must expect something far less jovial and trivial. But he had no accusing conscience, and if she chose to read her evening paper upside down in silence, he could at least read the morning paper the right way up. Then, as he would not give her a lead, make some remark, that is to say, to which she could take exception, she had to begin."I ought not to have shown him that envelope addressed to you."
ONE:Charles wanted to write to you, she said, but I said I would really prefer to explain. People are such fools, you know, arent they?
