"Only five minutes."
"Oh, as long as you like. I may as well sit up and talk as lie down, and think."
"What, are you as bad a sleeper as ever?"
"I have lost the knack of sleep. But I suppose I sleep enough, as I am alive. Some people talk as if three or four sleepless nights would kill them; but Sir Andrew Clarke let Gladstone lie awake seven nights before he would give him an opiate."
"But you will lose your beauty—worse than losing your life. You looked lovely to-night—too lovely, too much like an exquisite phantom. And now, my sweet Vera, don't be angry if I touch upon a delicate—no, an indelicate subject. You must never let Mrs. Bellenden enter your house again."
"Indeed, Susie! But why?"
"Because she is simply too outrageous!"
"Do you mean too handsome, too attractive?"
"I mean she is absolutely disreputable. If you had seen her in the picture gallery, with a crowd of men round her—your husband among them—laughing immoderately, as men only laugh when outrageous things are being said!"