Paul looked pleased. "I think our treatise upon the Sorrows of Dining promises to be a success," he said.
"What a pretty girl Violet has grown!" remarked Isabel, looking down the table at her cousin.
"Yes; and so like her mother," agreed Paul.
"Is she in love with anybody yet, do you think?"
Now Paul had a strong suspicion that a certain Lord Robert Thistletown and Violet were by no means indifferent to each other; but he was not going to gossip about the Esdailes, even to Isabel, so he said discreetly: "I'm sure I can't say. She would not be very likely to confide in me even if she were."
"I suppose not. But an author like you ought to discover love stories without having to be told them, like some people discover water by means of hazel twigs."
Paul smiled. "I am not an author yet," he said.
"But, joking apart, you really write a good deal, don't you, Mr. Seaton? Uncle Richard tells me that the delightful and fascinating short stories signed P.S., which one comes across now and again in various magazines, are yours."
"They are certainly mine, Miss Carnaby; but I am afraid that their delightfulness and fascination exist only in your rose-coloured imagination."
"Don't be foolish! Every one thinks they are splendid. You must know you are clever, and I call it affectation for people to pretend they don't recognize their own good points. Now I, for instance, never pretend that I'm not clever. If I'd had my choice I'd rather have been pretty, I confess; but that is neither here nor there."