Poor little Miss Toller would have sunk into the earth with shame if she had heard herself thus discussed. This was her first dinner-party end she had looked forward to it with tremulous but pleasurable anticipation. She was going to meet Lucius, and Lucius had always stood for her as an embodiment of everything that was worthy of admiration in the opposite sex. She had recently been put in command of her own small dress allowance, and had expended a good part of her quarter's income on the frock that Dizzy had criticised so contemptuously. Lucius had not taken so much notice of her as she had expected, considering that they had been friends all their lives; and he seemed unhappy! Poor boy! With feminine intuition she instantly divined something of the state of things that existed between him and his father. Hitherto she had regarded Mr. Binney with that respect due to his age and his standing in her father's congregation. Suddenly she found herself hating and despising him with a fervour that surprised even herself, and she would have given anything she possessed, even her new frock, to be able to console Lucius without appearing to understand why he was so downcast. Lucius spoke very little to her, although she sat next to him, and she was too shy to address him first; but now she had to collect her wits and cope with the embarrassing young man who sat on her left, who seemed more at ease than she could possibly have conceived any young man being in the awe-inspiring surroundings of a set dinner-party, and who spoke and behaved in quite a different manner from anybody she had ever met before.
"Oysters!" began Dizzy, as an opening to conversation. "I don't know whether you know that if you eat a dozen oysters and drink a wine-glassful of brandy after them, you die."
Miss Toller had never eaten oysters in her life, nor drunk brandy except under strong maternal pressure for medicinal purposes, but she looked rather frightened. "Do you?" she said.
"Yes," said Dizzy, "the brandy turns the oysters into leather. Leather's the most indigestible thing you can swallow, although of course nobody would swallow it if they could help it. But the funny part of it is, that if you eat a piece of cheese the size of a walnut—I don't know why walnut particularly—it melts the leather and then you are all right."
Miss Toller thought this information a trifle indelicate, but made no comment on it, except the tacit one of leaving her oysters untasted.
"Been to any plays lately?" inquired Dizzy.
"No," said Miss Toller, "my father doesn't approve of theatres."
"Doesn't he?" said Dizzy. "Quite right too. I'm sure the nonsense that's put on the stage now and called a play is enough to make you ill. And then they talk about dramatic art! Why, there's more art in a Punch and Judy show. Lucius and I have been going the rounds for the last week, and I'm hanged if I want to go and see another play till I'm seventy. Louie Freer's the only artist among the whole lot of 'em. Ever heard her sing 'Mary Jane's Top Note'? Oh, no, I forgot. You don't care for theatres. But you should have seen Lucius at the A.D.C. He was only a maid-servant—but such a maid-servant. He had letters from all the Registry Offices in Cambridge offering him situations. Every Sunday out and as many followers as he liked. Didn't you, Lucius?"
"He's talking nonsense, Nesta," said Lucius. "He always will talk whether he's got anything to say or not."
"But did you dress up as a maid-servant, Lucius?" asked the girl.