"He's been telling me about your relations with Darcy. Confound it, Belle!—it's too bad of you! Why, he's a beastly cad. I wouldn't have him in my house, and to think that the woman I—well, any woman I respect as much as I do you—should be on intimate terms with a man like that, makes my blood boil. Great Heavens, have some consideration for your friends, if you haven't for yourself! Think of what will be said of you; think——"
"Don't do the heroic, Jimsy, it doesn't become you," she interrupted. "Give me a cigarette, and see if you can't talk this matter over without going all to tatters."
"You smoke too much. I don't approve of ladies smoking. It seems so common."
"Nonsense. It's uncommon not to. I'm dying for a whiff, and one never gets a chance in that crowd of old fogies. Thank you—now what's all this disturbance about Colonel Darcy? I declare, I almost believe you are becoming an old fogy yourself."
"I didn't even know you knew him— Darcy, I mean— I object to him strongly."
"Really, Mr. Stanley, I don't run my acquaintances on the lines of your choosing."
"Of course not; but I may claim the privilege of a friend."
"To make yourself uncommonly disagreeable; I suppose you may—and I was feeling so amiable too—just in the mood for an old-time chat. But it can't be helped. Colonel Darcy's an old friend, and was very kind to me at a time when I needed friends and hadn't many. I don't know what he has done or not done, and I don't care. I learned that he was to be in this neighbourhood shortly on business, and, wishing to make some return for his past kindness, I proposed to my aunt to invite him here, and she, who's a woman after your own heart, refused—because, forsooth, he didn't get on well with his wife—as if his wife mattered to me— I certainly didn't want to invite her."
"I assure you," burst out the Secretary, "that she's a most charming woman, and that her husband has treated her like the cad and brute he is."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Stanley. I didn't know you were posing as the knight-errant of hysterical wives."