'Then,' continued Desvœux, who was really a good mimic and warming rapidly into the work, 'in comes the Board. First Fotheringham, condescending and serene and wishing us all "Good-morning," as if he were the Pope dispensing a blessing. You know his way—like this? Then here is Cockshaw, looking sagacious, but really pondering over his last night's rubber, and wishing the Board were finished.'
Felicia was forced to burst out laughing at the imitation.
'And now,' cried Maud, 'give us Mr. Blunt.'
Desvœux put on Blunt's square awkward manner and coughed an imprecatory cough.
'Gentlemen,' he said, 'your figures are wrong, your arguments false and your conclusions childish. I don't want to be offensive or personal, and I have the highest possible opinion of your service; but you must allow me to observe that you are all a pack of fools!'
'Capital,' cried Maud; 'and what do you do all the time, Mr. Desvœux?'
'Oh, Vernon and I sit still and wink at each other and hope for the time when we shall have become idiotic enough to be on the Board ourselves. We are of the new régime, and are supposed to have wits, and we have a great deal of intelligence to get over. But you know how the old ones were chosen. All the stupidest sons of the stupidest families in England for several generations, like the pedigree-wheat, you know, on the principle of selection; none but the blockheads of course would have anything to do with India.'
'Don't abuse the bridge that carries you over,' Felicia said: 'No treason to India—it has many advantages.'
'Innumerable,' cried Desvœux: 'first, a decent excuse for separation between husbands and wives who happen to be uncongenial—no other society has anything to compare with it. You quarrel, you know——'
'No, we don't,' said Felicia, 'thank you. Speak for yourself.'