No one seconds this rash opinion. There is a profound silence. Miss Mansergh looks mildly round for support, and, meeting Jack's eyes, stops there.
"Well, really, you know, yes. I think there is something special about her," he says, feeling himself in duty bound to say something.
"So there is; something specially awful," responds Nolly, pensively. "She frightens me to death. She has an 'eye like a gimlet.' When I call to mind the day my father inveigled me into the library and sort of told me I couldn't do better than go in for Lilias, my knees give way beneath me and smite each other with fear. I shudder to think what part in her mediæval programme would have been allotted to me."
"You would have been her henchman,—is that right, Nicholas?—or her varlet," says Dorothy, with conviction, "And you would have had to stain your skin, and go round with a cross-bow, and with your mouth widened from ear to ear to give you the correct look. All æsthetic people have wide mouths, have they not, Nicholas?"
"Bless me, what an enthralling picture!" says Mr. Darling. "You make me regret all I have lost. But perhaps it is not yet too late. I say, Dolly, you are eating nothing. Have some more bread-and-butter or cake, old girl. You don't half take care of yourself."
"Well, do you know, I think I will take another bit of cake," says Doatie, totally unabashed. "And—cut it thick. After all, Noll, I don't believe Lilias would ever marry you, or any other man: she wouldn't know what to do with you."
"It is very good of you to say that," says Nolly, meekly but gratefully. "It gives me great support. You honestly believe, then, that I may escape?"
"Just fancy the Æsthetic with a husband, and a baby on her knee."
"Like 'Loraine Loraine Loree,'" says Violet, laughing.
"Did she have both together on her knee?" asks Dorothy, vaguely. "She must have found it heavy."