"Do you suppose a vulgar fraction knows how vulgar it is?" asked Miss Grantham.
"Vulgar without being funny," said. Jack, with the air of helping her out of a difficulty.
"I never saw anything funny in vulgar fractions," remarked Lord Ledgers. "Chesterford and I used to look up the answers at the end of the book, and try to make them correspond with the questions."
Dodo groaned.
"Oh, Chesterford, don't tell me you're not honest either."
"What do you think about honesty, Mrs. Vivian?" asked Miss Grantham.
Mrs. Vivian considered.
"Honesty is much maligned by being called the best policy," she said; "it' isn't purely commercial. Honesty is rather fine sometimes."
"Oh, I'm sure Mrs. Vivian's honest," murmured Miss Grantham. "She thinks before, she tells you her opinion. I always give my opinion first, and think about it afterwards."
"I've been wanting to stick up for honesty all the afternoon," said Dodo to Mrs. Vivian, "only I haven't dared. Everyone has been saying that it is dull and obtrusive, and like labourers' cottages. I believe we are all a little honest, really. No one has got any right to call it the best policy. It makes you feel as if you were either a kind of life assurance, or else a thief."