The countess looked at him again through narrowing eyelids, the playfulness all vanished. “You do yourself injustice, sir, as I am a woman. Your wits want nothing more in briskness.” She rose, and looked down upon him engrossed in his broth. “For a dissembler, sir,” she pronounced upon him acidly, “I think it would be difficult to meet your match.”
He dropped his spoon into the bowl with a clatter. He looked up, the very picture of amazement and consternation.
“A dissembler, I?” quoth he in earnest protest; then laughed and quoted, adapting,
“'Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts
Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face
Should discontent sit heavy at my heart.”
She looked him over, pursing her lips. “I've often thought you might have been a player,” said she contemptuously.
“I'faith,” he laughed, “I'd sooner play than toil.”
“Ay; but you make a toil of play, sir.”
“Compassionate me, ma'am,” he implored in the best of humors. “I am but a sick man. Your ladyship's too keen for me.”
She moved across to the exit without answering him. “Come, child,” she said to Hortensia. “We are tiring Mr. Caryll, I fear. Let us leave him to his letter, ere it sets his pocket afire.”
Hortensia rose. Loath though she might be to depart, there was no reason she could urge for lingering.