“She is awfully pretty,” said Alicia, who could afford to be generous; “I like that colorless type.”
“She is delicate, I am afraid,” said Mary.
“She has the mouth of a Botticelli Madonna and the eyes of a Gainsborough; you know the portrait of Sheridan’s wife at Dulwich?”
Alicia had never been to Dulwich. Mary assented.
“The other one—the ugly one—is very clever,” Alicia went on; she was in a good temper evidently. Not that Alicia was ever exactly bad-tempered. “She said some very clever things and looked more.”
“She is too clever perhaps,” Mary remarked. “As for Mrs. Archinard, I should like to slap her. I think that my conventionality is of a tolerant order, but Mrs. Archinard’s efforts at æsthetic originality make me feel grimly conventional.”
“Mary! Mary! how delightful to hear such uncharitable remarks from you. I should rather like to slap her too, though she struck me as awfully conventional.”
“Oh, she is, practically. It is the artistic argot that bores one so much.”
“She is awfully self-satisfied too. Dear me, Peter, I wish we had driven after all. I hate the next half-mile. It is just uphill enough to be irritating—fatigue without realizing exactly the cause of it. Why didn’t we drive, Peter?”
“I thought we all preferred walking. You are a very energetic young person as a rule.”