“Have you dined?” I asked, with my hand on the bell.
“Thanks, yes. The town of Leamington provided me with quite a sumptuous repast of bread and cheese and ale. I am tired of luxuries you know,—that is why I find plain fare delicious. You are looking wonderfully well, Geoffrey!—shall I offend you if I say you are growing—yes—positively [p 340] stout?—with the stoutness befitting a true county gentleman, who means to be as gouty in the future as his respectable ancestors?”
I smiled, but not altogether with pleasure; it is never agreeable to be called ‘stout’ in the presence of a beautiful woman to whom one has only been wedded a matter of three months.
“You have not put on any extra flesh;—” I said, by way of feeble retort.
“No”—he admitted, as he disposed his slim elegant figure in an arm-chair near my own—“The necessary quantity of flesh is a bore to me always,—extra flesh would be a positive infliction. I should like, as the irreverent though reverend Sidney Smith said, on a hot day, ‘to sit in my bones,’ or rather, to become a spirit of fine essence like Shakespeare’s Ariel, if such things were possible and permissible. How admirably married life agrees with you, Lady Sibyl!”
His fine eyes rested upon her with apparent admiration,—she flushed under his gaze I saw, and seemed confused.
“When did you arrive in England?” she inquired.
“Yesterday,”—he answered,—“I ran over Channel from Honfleur in my yacht,—you did not know I had a yacht, did you Tempest?—oh, you must come for a trip in her some day. She is a quick vessel, and the weather was fair.”
“Is Amiel with you?” I asked.
“No.