“What do you think of him?” demanded Miss Simms, somewhat anxiously, as she adjusted her steel-bound self in a pile of cushions—straight-backed chairs in this room there were none.
Hermia shrugged her shoulders: “A decorous seasoning of passion; a clear, delicate gravy of sentiment; a pinch of pathos; a garnish of analysis; and a solid roast of dialect. Woe is me!—I have read two whole volumes; and I pray that I may like the author better than his books. But he is clever; there is no denying that!”
“Oh, horribly clever! What are you going to wear, to-night?”
“That dark-green velvet I showed you the other day.”
“Lovely! And it will match your eyes to a shade. You will look, as usual, as if you had just stepped out of an old picture. Mr. Cryder will put you in a book.”
“If he does I shall be a modern picture, not an old one. That man could not write a tale of fifty years ago.”
“So much the better for you! What you want is to fall in love with a modern man, and let him teach you that the mediæval was a great animal, who thought of nothing but what he ate and drank. I do not claim that the species is extinct; but, at least, in these days we have a choice.”
CHAPTER XII.
THE CLUB OF FREE DISCUSSION.