The duchess gives it up. "Yes, and a far better one, too," she says, amiably, declining to explain. Indeed, she is delighted to meet a young woman who actually regards slang as a foreign and unstudied language, and shrinks from being the first to help her to forget the English tongue. "Is there much beauty in Ireland?" she asks, presently.
"Yes, but we are all so different from the English. We have no pretty fair hair in Ireland, or at least very little of it."
"Do you admire our hair? And we are all so heartily tired of it," says the duchess. "Well, tell me more about your own land. Are the women all like you? In style, I mean. I have seen a few, of course, but not enough to describe a whole."
"Like me? Oh, no," says Mrs. Geoffrey. "Some of them are really beautiful, like pictures. When I was staying with Aunt Anastasia—the Provost's wife, you remember—I saw a great many pretty people. I saw a great many students, too," says Mona, brightening, "and liked them very much. They liked me, too."
"How strange!" says the duchess, with an amused smile. "Are you quite sure of that?"
"Oh, quite. They used to take me all over the college, and sometimes to the bands in the squares. They were very good to me."
"They would be, of course," says the duchess.
"But they were troublesome, very troublesome," says Mrs. Geoffrey, with a retrospective sigh, leaning back in her chair and folding her hands together on her lap. "You can't imagine what a worry they were at times,—always ringing the college bell at the wrong hours, and getting tight!"
"Getting what?" asks the duchess, somewhat taken aback.
"Tight,—screwed,—tipsy, you know," replies Mona, innocently. "Tight was the word they taught me. I think they believed it sounded more respectable than the others. And the Divinity boys were the worst. Shall I tell you about them?"