"Are Chateaubriands so plentiful?" laughed Mrs. Courtly, gently. "I wish I could find them! They would last so long, too. Madame Récamier's friendships did not depend upon her youth. I should like to end my days lying on a sofa, and surrounded by my old friends."
"Nothing reconciles one so much to the trouble of living as those strong links which stand the test of time," said Ferrars, looking with steady, level eyes at Mrs. Courtly.
"Ah! Quintin, yours is one of those iron natures whose links never melt—not very malleable, but which will stand any amount of strain, as I know."
"Never melts?" exclaimed Mrs. Van Winkle, opening her pretty blue eyes in affected wonder. "I prefer a man who melts."
"And whose links are of gold?" said Ferrars, without looking at her. Then he went on, while a flush mounted to her cheek, "I am not one of the precious metals."
"There is a great deal of brass," replied the lady, more tartly than she had yet spoken. "Give me another cup of tea, dear, with lots of sugar; I want something sweet after Mr. Ferrars's acidity. So you are going to the far West, your brother tells me, Miss Ballinger? What a journey!"
"And yet you think nothing of running backwards and forwards to Europe?" laughed Grace.
"Oh! traversing our own continent is different; not half such a change, and very trying to the complexion. Even in the East one gets awfully dried up. Then, there is nothing to see when one gets there."
"It is not only prophets who have no honor in their own country!" cried Sir Mordaunt. "Fancy, my sister has never seen the Tower of London! And it is the more shameful, as I was there for a year."
"Not imprisoned?" inquired Mrs. Van Winkle, with mock gravity.