"I am. I have walked enough, and talked enough, to last me a month."
"I am afraid I rather broke in upon your conversation just now," says Branscombe, looking earnestly at her. "But for my coming, Kennedy would have stayed on with you; and he is a—a rather amusing sort of fellow, isn't he?"
"Is he? He was exceedingly stupid to-day, at all events. I don't believe he has a particle of brains, or else he thinks other people haven't. I enjoyed myself a great deal more with the old duke, until that ridiculous Sir John Lincoln came to us. I don't think he knew a bit who the duke was, because he kept saying odd little things about the grounds and the guests, right under his nose; at least, right behind his back: it is all the same thing."
"What is? His nose and his back?" asks Dorian; at which piece of folly they both laugh as though it was the best thing in the world.
Then they make their way over the smooth lawns, and past the glowing flower-beds, and past Sir John Lincoln, too, who is standing in an impossible attitude, that makes him all elbows and knees, talking to a very splendid young man—all bone and muscle and good humor—who is plainly delighted with him. To the splendid young man he is nothing but one vast joke.
Seeing Mrs. Branscombe, they both raise their hats, and Sir John so far forgets the tulips as to give it as his opinion that she is "Quite too, too intense for every-day life." Whereupon the splendid young man, breaking into praise too, declares she is "Quite too awfully jolly, don't you know," which commonplace remark so horrifies his companion that he sadly and tearfully turns aside, and leaves him to his fate.
Georgie, who has been brought to a standstill for a moment, hears both remarks, and laughs aloud.
"It is something to be admired by Colonel Vibart, isn't it?" she says to Dorian; "but it is really very sad about poor Sir John. He has bulbous roots on the brain, and they have turned him as mad as a hatter."