"Did I say all that?" asks Mrs. Geoffrey, with wide eyes. "Indeed, I think you mistake. Old people have wrinkles, and they do not talk as you do. And when one is sweet to look at, one is never old."
To pay a compliment perfectly one must, I think, have at least a few drops of Irish blood in one's veins. As a rule, the happy-go-lucky people of Ireland can bring themselves to believe thoroughly, and without hypocrisy, in almost anything for the time being,—can fling themselves heart and soul into their flatteries, and come out of them again as victors. And what other nation is capable of this? To make sweet phrases is one thing; to look as if you felt or meant them is quite another.
The little suspicion of blarney trips softly and naturally from Mona's tongue. She doesn't smile as she speaks, but looks with eyes full of flattering conviction at the stout but comely duchess. And in truth it may be that in Mona's eyes she is sweet to look at, in that she has been kind and tender towards her in her manner.
And the duchess is charmed, pleased beyond measure That faint touch about the wrinkles was the happiest of the happy. Only that morning her Grace, in spite of her unapproachable maid and unlimited care, had seen an additional line around her mouth that had warned her of youth's decline, and now to meet some one oblivious of this line is sweet to her.
"Then you didn't go out much in Ireland?" she says, thinking it more graceful to change the conversation at this point.
"Out? Oh, ever so much," says Mrs. Geoffrey.
"Ah!" says the duchess, feeling puzzled. "Then perhaps they don't dance in Ireland.
"Yes, they do indeed, a great deal; at least I have heard so."
"Then I suppose when there you were too young to go out?" pursues the poor duchess, striving for information.
"I wasn't," says Mona: "I went out a great deal. All day long I was in the open air. That is what made my hands so brown last autumn."