"What I want's a woman who can cut a dash--not the rag-bag sort, all flounces and fluster--but a high-toned dash, you know. The sort of woman that can make all the other women want to have her life; who can sit with two hundred other women in a room and make 'em all feel that she doesn't know that there's another person there. By Jove! she'd do it, too!"
Mr. Ely laughed. But perhaps--as he was a sort of man who never laughed, in whom the bump of humour was entirely wanting--it would be more correct to describe the sound he made as a clearing of the throat. At this point he was engaged in details of the toilet into which it would be unwise to enter. But we really cannot refrain from mentioning what a very little man he looked in his shirt. Quite different to the Mr. Ely of the white waistcoat and frockcoat.
The next morning he took his departure. He had been under the painful necessity of spending one day away from town; he could not possibly survive through two. In fact he tore himself away by the very earliest train--in his habits he was an early little man--not with reluctance but delight: by so early a train, indeed, that he had left long before his lady-love came down. Mrs. Clive did the honours and sped the parting guest. She, poor lady, was not used to quite such early hours and felt a little out of sorts, but she did her best.
"Shall I give dear Lily a message when you are gone?"
Mr. Ely was swallowing ham and eggs as though he were engaged in a match against time. A healthy appetite for breakfast was one of his strong points.
"Tell her that dog of hers is ever so much too fat."
Pompey, who was at that moment reclining on a cushion on the rug, was perhaps a trifle stout--say about as broad as he was long. Still, Mrs. Clive did not like the observation all the same.
"Pompey is not Lily's dog, but mine."
"Ah! then if I were you, I'd starve the beggar for a week."
Mrs. Clive bridled. If she had a tender point it was her dog.