"It seems so," said Bertie, with a fine determination not to draw inferences.
"Ah, but don't you see——" said Jack.
"Oh, it's all right," said Bertie. "He is devoted to her, and she is clever and stimulating. Personally I shouldn't like a stimulating wife. I don't like stimulating people, I don't think they wear well. It would be like sipping brandy all day. Fancy having brandy at five o'clock tea. What a prospect, you know! Dodo's too smart for my taste."
"She never bores one," said Jack.
"No, but she makes me feel as if I was sitting under a flaming gas-burner, which was beating on to what Nature designed to be my brain-cover."
"Nonsense," said Jack. "You don't know her. There she is. Ah!"
A dog-cart had stopped close by them, and a girl got out, leaving a particularly diminutive groom at the pony's head. If anything she was a shade more perfectly dressed than the rest of the crowd, and she seemed to know it. Behind her walked another girl, who was obviously intended to walk behind, while Dodo was equally obviously made to walk in front.
Just then Dodo turned round and said over her shoulder to her,—
"Maud, tell the boy he needn't wait. You needn't either unless you like."
Maud turned round and went dutifully back to the dog-cart, where she stood irresolutely a few moments after giving her message.