"She worries it very inartistically," added Lord Reggie.
"Ah!" said Amarinth, as the ladies rose to go into the drawing-room; "she makes one great mistake. She judges of Society by her own parties, and looks at life through the spectacles of a divorce court judge. No wonder she is the bull terrier of modern London life."
Mrs. Windsor paused at the dining-room door and looked back.
"We are going to have coffee in the garden," she said. "Will you join us there? Don't stay too long over your water, Mr. Smith," she added, with pious archness.
"No; but I never take coffee, thank you," he answered solemnly.
VIII.
Esmé Amarinth was generally amusing and whimsical in conversation, but, like other men, he had his special moments, and the half-hour after dinner, when the ladies, longing to remain as invisible listeners, had retired to the bald deserts of feminine society, was usually his time of triumph. His mental stays were then unfastened. He could breathe forth his stories freely. His wittiest jokes, nude, no longer clad in the shadowy garments of more or less conventional propriety, danced like bacchanals through the conversation, and kicked up heels to fire even the weary men of society. He expanded into fantastic anecdote, and mingled many a bon mot with the blue spirals of his mounting cigarette smoke. But to-night Mr. Smith's gentle, "I never smoke, thank you," reminded him that the fate of Lord Reggie's anthem was hanging in the balance. He resolved to tread warily among clerical prejudices, so, lighting a cigarette, and pushing the claret away from him with one plump hand, he drew his chair slowly towards Mr. Smith's, and a sweet smile spread deliberately over his rather large and intelligent face.
"I was very much interested in your remark about doctrine and music at dinner," he began in his most carefully modulated voice, "and I wanted to pursue the subject a little farther, only the minds of ladies are so curious and unexpected, that I thought it better to refrain. Have you noticed that many women make a kind of profession of being shocked?"
"Surely no," said Mr. Smith, sipping his water with an inquiring air.