“Yes,” said Graeme, “I was helping Nelly, and I was in my old blue wrapper.”
“Now, Graeme,” said Will, “that is not the least like you. What about a wrapper?”
“Nothing, of course. But a call at that hour is not at all times convenient, unless from once intimate friends, and we are not intimate.”
“But perhaps she designs to honour you with her intimate friendship,” said Charlie.
Graeme laughed.
“I am very much obliged to her. But I think we could each make a happier choice of friends.”
“She is a very clever woman, though, let me tell you,” said Arthur; “and she can make herself very agreeable, too, when she chooses.”
“Well, I cannot imagine ever being charmed by her,” said Graeme, hastily. “There is something—a feeling that she is not sincere—that would spoil all her attempts at being agreeable, as far as I am concerned.”
“Smooth and false,” said Charlie.
“No, Charlie. You are much too severe,” said Arthur. “Graeme’s idea of insincerity is better, though very severe for her. And, after all, I don’t think that she is consciously insincere. I can scarcely tell what it is that makes the dear lady other than admirable. I think it must be her taste for management, as Miss Fanny calls it. She does not seem to be able to go straight to any point, but plans and arranges, and thinks herself very clever when she succeeds in making people do as she wishes, when in nine cases out of ten, she would have succeeded quite as well by simply expressing her desires. After all, her manoeuvring is very transparent, and therefore very harmless.”