"I am not easily prejudiced," replies Lilian, somewhat coldly, and instantly forms an undying dislike to the unknown Florence. "But she really is pretty?" she asks, again, rather persistently addressing Cyril.
"Lovely!" superciliously. "But ask Guy all about her: he knows."
"Do you?" says Lilian, turning her large eyes upon Guy.
"Not more than other people," replies he, calmly, though there is a perceptible note of irritation in his voice, and a rather vexed gleam in his blue eyes as he lets them fall upon his unconscious brother. "She is certainly not lovely."
"Then she is very pretty?"
"Not even very pretty in my eyes," replies Sir Guy, who is inwardly annoyed at the examination. Without exactly knowing why, he feels he is behaving shabbily to the absent Florence. "Still, I have heard many men call her so."
"She is decidedly pretty," says Lady Chetwoode, with decision, "but rather pale."
"Would you call it pale?" says Cyril, with suspicious earnestness. "Well, of course that may be the new name for it, but I always called it sallow."
"Cyril, you are incorrigible. At all events, I miss her in a great many ways," says Lady Chetwoode, and they who listen fully understand the tone of self-reproach that runs beneath her words in that she cannot bring herself to miss Florence in all her ways. "She used to pour out the tea for me, for one thing."
"Let me do it for you, auntie," says Lilian, springing to her feet with alacrity, while the new name trips melodiously and naturally from her tongue. "I never poured out tea for any one, and I should like to immensely."