"I dare say he will be very fond of him then. But I shall be miserable every hour he is out."
"Of course. Women ought to have only girls for children. There should be a race of man-mothers to rear the boys. I wonder Plato didn't suggest that in his Republic."
Mr. Hamleigh, with his head gently bent over his soup-plate, had contrived to watch Christabel's face while politely replying to a good deal of gush on the part of the fair Dopsy. He saw that expressive face light up with smiles, and then grow earnest. She was full of interest and animation, and her candid look showed that the conversation was one which all the world might have heard.
"She has forgotten me. She is happy in her married life," he said to himself, and then he looked to the other end of the table where Leonard sat, burly, florid, black-haired, mutton-chop whiskered, the very essence of Philistinism—"happy—with him."
"And I am sure you must adore Ellen Terry," said Dopsy, whose society-conversation was not a many-stringed instrument.
"Who could live and not worship her?" ejaculated Mr. Hamleigh.
"Irving as Shylock!" sighed Dopsy.
"Miss Terry as Portia," retorted Angus.
"Unutterably sweet, was she not?"
"Her movements were like a sonata by Beethoven—her gowns were the essence of all that Rubens and Vandyck ever painted."