'Is not he conceited?' said Mrs. Vereker, raining the influence of a bewitching smile upon her guests, and summoning, as she could at pleasure, the most ingenuous of blushes to her cheeks; 'he thinks he is quite a first-rate judge of everything.'
'Not of everything,' said the other, 'but of some things—Mrs. Vereker's good looks, for instance—yes, from long and admiring contemplation of the subject! It would be hard indeed if one could not have an opinion about what has given one so much pleasure, and, alas! so much suffering!'
Desvœux said this with the most sentimental air, and Mrs. Vereker seemed to take it quite as a matter of course.
'Poor fellow!' she said; 'well, perhaps I will show you the bonnet after all, just to console you; am I not kind?'
'You know,' said Desvœux, 'that you are dying to put it on. Pray defer your and our delectation no longer!'
'Rude and disagreeable person!' cried the other, 'Suppose, Miss Vernon, we go off and look at it by ourselves and have a good long chat, leaving him alone here to cultivate politeness?'
'Yes,' cried Maud, 'let us. Here, Mr. Desvœux, is a very interesting report on something—Education—no, Irrigation—with nice tables and plenty of figures. That will amuse you till we come back.'
'At any rate, don't turn a poor fellow out into such a hurricane as this,' said Desvœux, going to the window and looking into the garden, where by this time a sand-storm was raging and all the atmosphere thick and murky with great swirls of dust. 'I should spoil my complexion and my gloves, and very likely be choked into the bargain.'
'But it was just as bad when you came, and you did not mind it.'
'Hope irradiated the horizon,' cried Desvœux; 'but it was horrible. I have a perfect horror of sand—like the people in "Alice," you know—