"An æsthetic! Oh! I do hope not," exclaims Dulce, in a horrified tone.
"Have they pursued me even down here?" asks Portia, faintly. "I thought, I hoped, they were plants indigenous to London soil alone."
"He is nothing of the sort," says Roger, indignantly. "He is about the best fellow I know. He would be ashamed to go round (like those idiots you speak of) with flowers and flowing locks. He leaves all that sort of thing"—contemptuously—"to girls."
"Who is talking of Stephen Gower?" asks Sir Mark, coming towards them over the path of moonlight that lies upon the smooth lawn. "Happy man to be discussed by so fair a trio, 'beneath the sweet-smelling starlight,' as James has it."
"Bless me," says Dicky, "I had no idea dry monopole would have had such an effect on Gore. He is talking poetry, I think; I never could understand it myself. Now for example, about those stars—do they smell? I never noticed it. What's it like, Gore?"
Everyone disdains to take notice of this sally—all, that is, except Dulce, who is always only too delighted to laugh whenever the barest chance of being able to do so presents itself.
Roger, crossing over to where she sits, leans his arms on the back of her chair, and bends his face to hers.
"Look here," he says, in the conciliatory tone of one who is going to make a request and is not quite sure it will be granted. "If Gower comes down by-and-by, I wish you would promise me to be good to him. He is a very old chum of mine, and a very good fellow, and—be civil to him, will you?"
"What do you suppose I am going to do to him?" asks Miss Blount, opening her eyes. "Was I bad to him at luncheon? Are you afraid I shall bite him? I shan't. You may be happy about that."
"Of course—I know; but I want you to be particularly nice to him," goes on Roger, though faintly discouraged by her tone. (Now what did he mean by saying she wouldn't bite him. It sounds as if she would bite me!) "He is the oldest friend I have; and—er—as we are to be married some time or other, I want him to like you very much."