"Lud Betty, do you child!" murmured that lady, opening sleepy eyes, "Pray what's amiss now?"
"Why must you tattle of me to Major d'Arcy?"
"I? Tattle? O Gemini!"
"Of me—and breeches?"
"Breeches! La miss and fie! I should swoon to name 'em to a man! So indelicate, so immodest, so——"
"Unvirginal!" cried Betty, and stamped pretty foot more angrily than ever.
"Truly, miss! Indeed such a word has never crossed my lips to one of the male sex and never shall——"
"And when you told him he was duly shocked, I suppose, and rolled up his eyes in a spasm of virtue and lifted his hands in prudish horror?" demanded Lady Betty, kicking savagely at the litter of torn paper.
"Nay, he frowned, I remember, and positively blushed—and no wonder!"
"He blushed!" cried Betty scornfully, "and he a man—a soldier! By heaven he seems more virginal than Diana and all her train! Fie on him, O, 'tis shameful—so big, so strong, so—squeamish! O Lord, how I hate, detest and despise him!"