George settled himself deliberately in his chair, and turned to study his companion.
"Do you mind warning me, to begin with, how I can avoid giving you a headache? Since this morning my nerve has gone—I want directions."
"Well—" said Letty, pondering, "let us lay down the subjects we may talk about first. For instance, you may talk of Mrs. Hawkins."
She gave an imperceptible nod which directed his eyes to the thin woman sitting opposite, to whom Harding Watton, a fashionable and fastidious youth, was paying but scant attention.
George examined her.
"I don't want to," he said shortly; "besides, she would last us no time at all."
"Oh!—on the contrary," said Letty, with malice sparkling in her brown eye, "she would last me a good twenty minutes. She has got on my gown."
"I didn't recognise it," said George, studying the thin lady again.
"I wouldn't mind," said Letty, in the same tone of reflection, "if Mrs. Hawkins didn't think it her duty to lecture me in the intervals of copying my frocks. If I disapproved of anybody, I don't think I should send my nurse to ask their maid for patterns."
"I notice you take disapproval very calmly."