Nesta wondered at Dartrey Fenellan for staying so long with Mr. and Mrs. Blathenoy.
‘Ah, Mr. Sowerby, if I am to have flattery, I cannot take it as a milliner’s dumb figure wears the beautiful dress; I must point out my view of some of my merits.’
‘Oh! do, I beg, Miss... You have a Christian name and I too: and once ... not Mr. Sowerby: yes, it was Dudley!
‘Quite accidentally, and a world of pardons entreated.’
‘And Dudley begged Dudley might be Dudley always!’
He was deepening to the Barmby intonation—apparently Cupid’s; but a shade more airily Pagan, not so fearfully clerical.
Her father had withdrawn Dartrey Fenellan from Mr. and Mrs. Blathenoy. Dr. Schlesien was bowing with Dartrey.
‘And if Durandarte would only—but you are one with Miss Graves to depreciate my Durandarte, in favour of the more classical Jachimo; whom we all admire; but you shall be just,’ said she, and she pouted. She had seen her father plant Dartrey Fenellan in the midst of a group of City gentlemen.
Simeon touched among them to pluck at his brother. He had not a chance; he retired, and swam into the salmon-net of seductive Mrs. Blathenoy’s broad bright smile.
‘It’s a matter of mines, and they’re hovering in the attitude of the query, like corkscrews over a bottle, profoundly indifferent to blood-relationships,’ he said to her.