Even now, surprised, uncomprehending as she was with regard to most of the conversation, she did not fail to remark the tact which with a word, with a question easy to answer, she kept three of her guests, at least, ostensibly within the pale of the conversation.
“It’s quite fair. We are evenly matched, to-night. Our stupidity has always outweighed her intelligence before, so she never had a chance,” thought Mrs. Dakin. The bitterness of the reflection was caused by the conviction that it was ignorance, not lack of ability, which kept her, at least, out of discussions which interested her. Mrs. Dakin was one of those women whom mental laziness, not lack of brain quality, goes far to ruin. Her mind, naturally active and restless, was unemployed. She had never trained herself to think. To-night, with sudden self-recognition, she regretted both circumstances.
Harry, she noticed it with a curious sensation, half jealousy, half pride, was not out of the talk. He was no conversationalist, but he understood, he appreciated, he contributed. That his point of view was valuable, she knew by the brightening of Miss Page’s eyes when he spoke; by an occasional vivacious affirmative nod from Monsieur Fontenelle.
An idea, odd, staggering in its novelty, occurred to her.
“Perhaps I bore Harry?”
Never before had this aspect of affairs presented itself to her consciousness, and the notion passed like a flash.
The conviction that the exhausting mental ailment of boredom belonged by right to her alone, was too firmly established to be upset by a fugitive ridiculous fancy.
Again she listened.
The Frenchman’s eloquence and vivacity amused and excited her. He spoke rapidly, and though the words were English, pronounced with only the slightest foreign accent, their use, their handling was French.
Never before, for instance, had she heard any one utter at length a panegyric such as that to which she was now listening. It was evoked by the name of an author of whom she had never heard, and it was the sort of thing which in a book she was accustomed to skip. Spoken with the ease and certainty which indicated a natural habit of fluent speech, it amazed and impressed her.