"I forget it," says Dorian, professing the very deepest interest, "but I know it is all things."
"No, it isn't: I can't bear the sleeves. Then"—discontentedly—"there is that velvet."
"The very thing,"—enthusiastically.
"Oh, Dorian, dear! What are you thinking of? Do remember how warm the weather is."
"Well, so it is,—grilling," says Mr. Branscombe, nobly confessing his fault.
"Do you like me in that olive silk?" asks she, hopefully, gazing at him with earnest intense eyes.
"Don't I just?" returns he, fervently, rising to enforce his words.
"Now, don't be sillier than you can help," murmurs she, with a lovely smile. "Don't! I like that gown myself, you know: it makes me look so nice and old, and that."
"If I were a little girl like you," says Mr. Branscombe, "I should rather hanker after looking nice and young."
"But not too much so: it is frivolous when one is once married." This pensively, and with all the air of one who has long studied the subject.