“What do you say to the Count, Lizzy?” asked he next. “There was a fine gentleman, wasn't he?”
“There was the ease and the self-possession of good breeding without the manners. He was amusing from his own self-content, and a sort of latent impression that he was taking you in, and when one got tired of that, he became downright stupid.”
“True as a book, every word of it!” cried Beecher, in hearty gratitude, for he detested the man, and was envious of his small accomplishments.
“His little caressing ways, too, ceased to be flatteries, when you saw that, like the cheap bonbons scattered at a carnival, they were made for the million.”
“Hit him again, he has n't got no friends!” said Beecher, with an assumed slang in his tone.
“But worst of all was that mockery of good nature,—a false air of kindliness about him. It was a spurious coinage, so cleverly devised that you looked at every good guinea afterwards with distrust.”
“How she knows him,—how she reads him!” cried Davis, in delight.
“He was very large print, papa,” said she, smiling.
“Confound me!” cried Beecher, “if I didn't think you liked him, you used to receive him so graciously; and I'll wager he thinks himself a prime favorite with you.”
“So he may, if it give him any pleasure,” said she, with a careless laugh.