“I do not wonder that any one who does not know Doctor V——— should be surprised by his great humility,” added Helen.
“You are sure that it is not pride that apes humility?” asked Churchill.
“Yes, quite sure!”
“Yet—” said Churchill (putting his malicious finger through a great hole in the thumb of the doctor’s glove) “I should have fancied that I saw vanity through the holes in these gloves, as through the philosopher’s cloak of old.”
“Horace is a famous fellow for picking holes and making much of them, Miss Stanley, you see,” said the aide-de-camp.
“Vanity! Doctor V——has no vanity!” said Helen, “if you knew him.”
“No vanity! Whom does Miss Stanley mean?” cried the aide-de-camp. “No vanity? that’s good. Who? Horace?”
“Mauvais plaisant!” Horace put him by, and, happily not easily put out of countenance, he continued to Helen,—
“You give the good doctor credit, too, for all his naïveté?” said Churchill.
“He does not want credit for it,” said Helen, “he really has it.”