"I wear petticoats still," says Portia, demurely, with a soft laugh, "and frills sometimes, and often furbelows, I think, though I don't in the least know what they mean, but they sound nice. So, after all, I should be now very much as I was."
"Very much. But forgive me," says Sir Christopher, "if I say you were not anything like as good-looking then as you are to-day."
"A speech easy to forgive," said Portia, lightly. Then, after a pause, "I, too, remember what you were like in those old days."
"What then?" asked Sir Christopher, giving a sudden pull to his collar, and betraying an increased degree of interest.
"Nothing like so good-looking as you are to-day," retorts she, with a quick smile and a little flicker of her eyelids.
"Ah! we shall be friends," cries Sir Christopher, gaily. "Baby and you and I will ride roughshod over all the others; and we have wanted somebody to help us, haven't we, Baby?" Then he turns more entirely to Dulce; "Eh, a sharp wit, isn't it?" he says.
"Auntie Maud sent her love to you," said Portia.
"Eh? Much obliged, I'm sure," says Sir Christopher. "Very good of her; mine to her in return. A most estimable woman she always was, if short of nose. How she could have thrown herself away upon that little insignificant—eh?—though he was my brother—eh?"
"She ought to have had you," says Miss Vibart, with soft audacity.
"Eh? eh?" says Sir Christopher, plainly delighted. "Now, what a rogue!" He turns to Dulce, as he always does on every occasion, be it sweet or bitter. "You hear her, Dulce. She flatters me, eh?"