"The fire from the eyes of Croizette was too much for her; she has gone to hide within herself," said Vaura.
"No wonder she doesn't show even through a glass," said the little baronet.
"Else," continued Vaura, "the role of 'Forgiving Virtue' is too much for her; she shrinks from it."
"She might be more expansive in the other role," laughed Bertram.
"She is a handful of the essence of talent," said Trevalyon, "and always good form whether the form of a Venus or no."
"True," said Lady Esmondet, though she cannot quote in a personal sense of the "heavy cloak of the body still as weighed against a cultivated intellect, roundness of form is a mere bagatelle."
"I humbly appeal to you all," said Bertram in seriocomic tone, "is my rotundity a mere bagatelle?"
"Lady Esmondet says so, and it must be true," said Trevalyon laughingly.
"Of course it is; anyone to look at you would say the same," said
Everly.
"My advice, Bertram," said Trevalyon, "is, on your return to England, to retire to the cool shades of oblivion and try the 'Bantam' system: that is if Owen Cunliffe does not send you there, for having while in Paris been attentive to the fair sex instead of to the interests of our Isle."