"I don't, indeed, my dear Bella. My acquaintance with—er—that sort of person has been limited: I quite envy you your superior knowledge."
Here Olga laughs a little, low, rippling laugh that completes her enemy's defeat. After the laugh there is a dead silence.
"I think somebody ought to remove the poor little child," says Mr. Kelly, in a low, impressive tone, pointing to Mrs. Herrick's little girl. At which everybody laughs heartily, and awkwardness is banished.
"Browne?—I knew an Archibald Browne once: anything to this girl?" asks Lord Rossmoyne, hurriedly, unwilling to let silence settle down on them again.
"Big man with a loose tie?" asks Ulic.
"Ye-es. There was something odd about his neck, now I remember," says Rossmoyne.
"That was her father. He had an idea he was like Lord Byron, and always wore his necktie flying in the wind."
"He couldn't manage it, though," says Mr. Kelly, with as near an attempt at mirth as he ever permits himself. "It always flew the wrong way. Byron's, if you call to mind his many portraits, always flew over his left shoulder; old Browne's wouldn't. By the bye," thoughtfully, "Byron must have had a wind of his own, mustn't he? our ordinary winds don't always blow in the same direction, do they?"
"I would that a wind could arise to blow you in some direction, when you are in such an idle mood as now," says Mrs. Herrick, in a low tone.
"If it would blow me in your direction, I should say amen to that," in a voice as subdued as her own.