"I know," she cried. "The only really cultivated thing is to fail elegantly."
"Let's bow our acknowledgments," Morewood called across to Marchmont.
"Oh, no, Mr. Marchmont isn't like that. He doesn't even try. Well, perhaps that's still more superior." She smiled at Marchmont, shaking her head. "But we try, we try everything."
The "we" grated still on Marchmont's feelings, and the worse because it seemed to come more easily and naturally from her lips. Yet that might be only the result of practice; she had looked at him in a merry defiance as the last words left her lips.
"And you get other people to try your things too," pursued Morewood.
"Look here, you don't mean me, do you?" Jimmy Benyon put in. "Because I'm not trying Fanny; on the contrary, she's trying me."
"What, already?" asked Dick with exaggerated apprehension. "What'll it be when you're married?"
"Ah," said Morewood, "now what is it when you're married? Does any duly qualified person wish to answer the question?" His mischievous glance rested again on May Quisanté.
"Oh, marriage is all right," said Dick, raising his voice to allow his wife to hear. "At least it's not so bad as things go in this world. It's giving a shilling and getting back eleven-pence."
There was a little murmur of applause. "I declare every married person at the table seems to endorse the opinion," said Marchmont with a laugh. "We'll keep our shillings, I think, Morewood."