The victoria is quite out of sight now—quite out of sight the delicately poised head, the dove-colored parasol.
"You are joking, of course," says Frank, presently, turning toward me, and still speaking in that needlessly lowered key. "It is so long since I have seen you, that I have got out of the habit of remembering that you never speak seriously; but, of course, you have heard—I mean Sir Roger has mentioned her to you!"
"He has not!" reply I, speaking sharply, and raising my voice a little. "Neither has he mentioned any of the other neighbors to me! He had not time." No rejoinder. "Most likely," continue I, speaking with quick heat, for something in his manner galls me, "he did not recollect her existence."
"Most likely."
He is looking down at the white dust which is defiling his patent-leather boots, and smiling slightly.
"How do you know—what reason have you for thinking that he was aware that there was such a person?" I ask, with injudicious eagerness.
"I have no reason—I think nothing," he answers, coldly, with an air of ostentatious reserve.
I walk on in a ruffled, jarred silence. Presently Frank speaks again.
"Are those two"—(slightly indicating by a faint nod the figures in front of us)—"the two you expected?—Are these—what are their names?—Algy and Barbara?"
"Yes," say I, smiling, with recovered equanimity; "Algy and Barbara." A little pause. "You can judge for yourself now," say I, laughing rather nervously, "whether I spoke truth—whether Barbara is as like the St. Catherine as I told you." For a moment he does not answer. "Of course," I say, rather crestfallen, "the bonnet makes a difference; the likeness is much more striking when it is off."