"A picture of a boiled rag," said Lady Oxted, "treated, with extreme realism. Well, will you come?"
"Of course I will, with pleasure. I long to get out of this frouzy town. What does Miss Aylwin do?"
"She will go to the Arbuthnots while I am away, poor dear!"
"She might do worse. And Harry?"
"Harry will probably go to the Arbuthnots too, a good deal," remarked Lady Oxted.
She got up.
"I am glad you promised to come without any hesitation," she said, "because otherwise I should have had to press you, which is degrading. Harry's engagement has given me a lot to think about, and I want to express my thoughts to some very slow, ordinary person like you, in the same way as Molière used to read his plays to his housekeeper. I have got a sort of idea in my head, and I wish to see how it impresses the completely average mind."
"I hope it is a nice idea," said Geoffrey. "But one can't tell with you. You have such an inconvenient sort of mind!"
"It isn't nice," said Lady Oxted; "in fact, it is just the opposite. However, you will hear more of it to-morrow evening. Here's Harry. I shall go. Dear me, I wonder whether Bob looked as idiotic as that when we were engaged? I don't think he can have, or I should have broken it off."
Harry's face in fact wore a smile of intensely inane radiance, but his desire to score off his aunt, as he now called her, caused it to fade off like the breath off a razor.