"Thanks for the compliment," she said; "but prudes are born, not made. You don't shoot, you don't hunt, you remember every wasp you have possibly killed. Oh, Tom, I am afraid you are hopeless. Don't laugh. I mean what I say; at least, I think I mean the greater part of it."
"I reserve the less, then," said Tom. "I must go too. So Alice and Haslemere and I will see you to-night?"
"Yes; we'll escape as soon as we can from the dinner. Mind you take some money with you, Jack, for the round game. I must fly," she said again, and took her graceful presence very slowly out of the room.
There was a short silence, broken by Lord Conybeare.
"It is odd how you can tell a man by the hour at which he dines," he said. "Seven is an impossible hour, and the people who dine at seven are as impossible as the hour. People who dine at half-past are those who are trying to dine at eight and cannot manage it. They are also trying not to be impossible, and cannot."
Lady Haslemere got up.
"I once knew a man who dined at ten minutes to eight," she said, "which struck me as extremely curious. He was an archdeacon. I believe all archdeacons dine at ten minutes to eight. And they call it a quarter to, which is even odder."
"I don't know any archdeacons," said Tom, with a touch of wistfulness in his voice. "Introduce me to one to-night, Alice."
"Archdeacons don't come to Berkeley Street," said she.