"Oh, well! But she's so crabbed, somehow. One expects a bride to have some kind of softness in her manners, and—hang it all, there's not a particle of romance about her."
"My dear fellow, if there is in the United Kingdom a young man of three-and-twenty who can comfortably dispense with romance in his wife, our friend Errington is that young man."
"Oh, well! I know Errington's a very clever fellow, and all that, and perhaps I'm a fool. But I—I shouldn't like my wife to be quite so cool and cutting in her manners, that's all!"
"Neither should I. And perhaps I'm a fool!"
"Shouldn't you, now?" Orlando was encouraged by this admission on Diamond's part, further, to express his opinion that it was all very fine to stick "Honourable" before your name; but that, for his part, he considered little Miss Maxfield to look fifty times more like a lady than Mrs. Algernon. And as for good looks, there was, of course, no comparison. And though Miss Maxfield was too shy and quiet, yet if you offered her any little civility, she thanked you in such a sweet way that a fellow felt as if he could do anything for her; whereas, some women stare at a fellow enough to turn a fellow into stone.
But the Misses McDougall were enthusiastic in their praises of Algernon's wife. They performed a sort of Carmen Amœbœum after this fashion:
Rose. "That sweet creature, the Honourable Mrs. Algernon! I can't get her out of my head."
Violet. "Dear thing! What high-bred manners! And did she tell you that we are positively related? The Mackelpies, you know, call cousins with us. There was the branch that went off from the elder line of Brose"—&c. &c. &c.
Rose. "Oh yes; one feels at home directly with people of one's own class. How lucky Algernon has been to get such a wife, instead of some chit of a girl who would have had no weight in society!"
Violet. "Yes; but she's quite young enough, Rose?"