I bowed again.
“Look how cheerful she is.”
I bowed again.
“And how clever, dear Baron.”
Clever? That indeed was a new way of looking at poor Edelgard. I could not at this repress a smile of amusement. “I am gratified that you should have so good an opinion of my wife,” I said; and wished much to add, “But what is my wife to you that you should take it upon yourself to praise her? Is she not solely and exclusively my property?”
Mrs. Menzies-Legh, however, was absolutely rebuke-proof, and had so many answers ready that I thought it better not to bring them upon me in crowds. I did though rather cleverly turn the tables upon her, and at the same time bring the conversation to a point which really interested me, by beginning to praise her sister.
“It is good of you,” I said, “to commend my family. In return permit me to praise yours.”
“What—John?” she asked, with a quick look and something of a smile. (John was her ill-conditioned husband.) “Are you—do you like him so much?”
Now as I thought John a very poor thing indeed this question would have seemed difficult to answer to any one less ready.
“Like,” said I, with conspicuously careful courtesy, “is not at all the word that describes my feelings toward your husband.”