[CHAPTER VIII.]
'Le monde est plein de gens qui ne sont pas plus sages.'—La Fontaine.
With the winter came many invitations, but they were nearly all refused, for Mr. Loftus had long since dispensed himself from attending county festivities, and Sibyl, though she had recovered her health, was always delicate. Lady Pierpoint had had doubts as to whether she ought to winter in England, but not only was Sibyl herself determined so to do, but when Lady Pierpoint saw her in London before Christmas with a vivid colour and an elasticity of bearing which made a marked contrast to the drooping, listless demeanour of the previous winter, her doubts were at once set at rest.
Presently, however, an invitation came for a masked ball in the immediate neighbourhood, which Mr. Loftus decided could not be refused.
'But why should we go?' said Sibyl, 'if we don't care about it. And I hate balls, and I hate society. I was saying so to the Gresleys only yesterday. I love my own fireside and a book.'
Sibyl had no idea how much these occasional mild flourishes, which found great favour at the Vicarage, annoyed Mr. Loftus. She put them forth, poor thing! with a view to showing him how much she had in common with him.
'It is a mistake to say you hate society,' said Mr. Loftus, 'because you are not in a position to hate what you have never seen. Personally, I can see nothing peculiarly obnoxious in my fellow-creatures when they have their diamonds and white ties on. I do not even discover that they are more worldly in ball-gowns than on other occasions.'
'But it is all so empty and vain,' said Sibyl; 'and though I dare say I have not seen much, still, the small-talk is so wearying, and I suppose that is the same everywhere. I should not mind society if there was any real conversation, anything deep.'
Sibyl loved the word 'deep.' She used it on the occasions when others use the word 'trite,' she meaning the same as they did, but looking at the trite from a different angle. From her point of vantage, eccentricity was originality, and a wholesale contradiction of established facts a new view.
Mr. Loftus was so close on the verge of annoyance that he was obliged to be amused instead.