"No one would accuse her of being exceptionally moral."
"I said she didn't make a pretence of it," said Jim.
Mrs. Davenport threw herself into the breach, and asked the dowager how digitalis was made.
Gertrude was sitting next Jim Armine, and wished to know more. Old Lady Hayes was well embarked on the structure of foxglove seeds, and she turned to Jim.
"You know Lady Hayes very well, don't you?" she asked.
"I was with them in Algiers last year."
"Do you like her very much?"
"That's a wrong word to use, somehow," he said. "I think she is the cleverest woman I ever saw, and, perhaps, the most interesting," he added, in a burst of veiled confidence.
"Ah!"—it was somewhat discouraging to hear that so many people took this as their main characteristic—"I don't know her at all. But I don't feel as if I should like her."
"I believe women dislike her very much, as a rule," remarked Jim, drily.