The room had just settled down steadily to work through the menu when Phil’s neighbour, a lady of uncertain age with spinster writ large, opened fire upon him in this wise:
“How very thick the scent of the narcissus is this evening.”
“It is. A sort of Rimmel’s shop turned loose in the Alps.”
“But such a heavy perfume must be very unhealthy, must it not?”
“Possibly.”
“But don’t you think it must be?”
“I really can’t give an opinion. You see, I don’t know anything about the matter,” replied Phil, good-humouredly, and in something like desperation as the blank truth dawned upon him that he was located next to a bore of the first water, and the worst kind of bore at that—the bore feminine. His persecutor went on:
“But they say that flowers too strongly scented are very unhealthy in a room, don’t they?”
“Do they? I don’t know. But, after all, these are not in the room; they are outside.”
“But don’t you think it comes to the same thing?” Heavens! What was to be the end of this? Instinctively he stole a glance at Fordham, but that worthy’s impassive countenance betrayed nothing, unless it were the faintest possible appreciation, in his grim, saturnine way, of the humour of the thing. He mumbled something not very intelligible by way of reply, and applied himself with extra vigour to the prime duty of the gathering. But he was not to escape so easily.