"Oh, she's not so bad," said the Englishman, loyally. "She has some admirable traits, and she's deuced clever, but she has an ill-regulated sort of a nature, and is awfully obstinate and prejudiced. It's a sort of vanity. She worries Dartmouth a good deal. He's a born poet, if ever a man was, and she wants him to go into politics. Wants a salon and all that sort of thing. She ought to have it, too. Political intrigue would just suit her; she's diplomatic and secretive. But Dartmouth prefers his study."
The lady from Spain raised her sympathetic, pensive eyes to the Englishman's. "And the Señor Dar-muth? How he is? He is nice fellow? I no meeting hime?"
"The best fellow that ever lived, God bless him!" exclaimed the young man, enthusiastically. "He has the temperament of genius, and he isn't always there when you want him—I mean, he isn't always in the right mood; but he's a splendid specimen of a man, and the most likeable fellow I ever knew—poor fellow!"
"Why you say 'poor fel-low'? He is no happy, no?"
"Well, you see," said the young man, succumbing to those lovely, pitying eyes, and not observing that they gazed with equal tenderness at the crimson wine in the cup beside her plate—"you see, he and his wife are none too congenial, as I said. It makes her wild to have him write, not only because she wants to cut a figure in London, and he will always live in some romantic place like this, but she's in love with him, in her way, and she's jealous of his very desk. That makes things unpleasant about the domestic hearthstone. And then she doesn't believe a bit in his talent, and takes good care to let him know it. So, you see, he's not the most enviable of mortals."
"Much better she have be careful," said the Spanish woman; "some day he feel tire out and go to lover someone else. Please you geeve me some more clarette?"
"Here comes Sir Dafyd," said the Englishman, as he filled her glass.
"It has taken him a long time to find out how she is."
The shadow had wholly disappeared from Sir Dafyd's mouth, a faint
smile hovering there instead. As he took his seat the Austrian
Ambassador leaned forward and inquired politely about the state of
Lady Sionèd's health.
"She is sleeping quietly," said Sir Dafyd.