“Liar!”
Which civil and ingratiating apostrophe was naturally confined to his own breast.
“Don’t you find that this generation has a positively vitiated taste as regards fiction?” Bertha Tregaskis demanded of her hostess, who, having all her life been innocently devoid of any taste for fiction at all, replied in an unsure voice:
“Do you mean sort of penny dreadfuls, Bertie, dear? which they always say the housemaids like, though I’m sure mine have the most superior taste, for they read books like ‘St. Elmo’ or ‘Donovan’ for choice, I believe. I know my maid told me she was reading a novel called ‘Infelice,’ whatever that may mean. So educated of her, I thought, to choose a book with a foreign name like that.”
“‘Infeleese’?” repeated Mrs. Tregaskis uncomprehendingly. “Oh, Infelice! I know what you mean. My dear Sybil!”
More laughter.
“Have I said something absurd?” Lady Argent helplessly inquired; “I never do know anything about books, you know—so unlike Ludovic.”
She looked proudly at her son.
“You know he writes, Bertie?”
Ludovic had writhed under this simple announcement ever since his tenth year.