"How can I talk when we're exceeding the speed limit?" said Valentia.
"You usually do. Is anything the matter?"
"No, nothing at all.... Harry's been horrid lately."
"I suppose he is occasionally."
"No, he's not. He's got the artistic temperament, and of course he can't always be the same, poor dear."
"What a pity one can't be an artist without having the artistic temperament! It always seems to mean being late for meals, and losing your temper, or being amusing when every one wants to go to bed."
"As a matter of fact," said Valentia, "I never knew any one with less of it than Harry. There isn't a more hard-headed business man in the world in his way, though he has read poetry and plays the piano sometimes, and paints. He is an artist too ... but—well, not in any of the recognised arts.... I hear Miss Luscombe and Rathbone—I mean Mr. and Mrs. Rathbone—have gone to Oberammergau for their honeymoon."
"Oh! Is that the latest thing to do?"
"Of course not, Daphne, but she thinks it is. Miss Luscombe has spent her life in trying to catch the last omnibus and always just missing it, and she's not going to leave off now just because she happens to be married. Here we are!"
The Prebendary's wife received them very graciously. Her waist looked longer than ever, and her skirt seemed more than usually abnormal in width. She did all that she could to entertain them. She showed them her son Garstin's map of Buckinghamshire, and then said—