“Piph-ph-ph—how warm it is, to be sure!” said Mr. Swancourt, as if his mind were a long distance from all he saw. “I declare that my watch is so hot that I can scarcely bear to touch it to see what the time is, and all the world smells like the inside of a hat.”
“How the men stare at you, Elfride!” said the elder lady. “You will kill me quite, I am afraid.”
“Kill you?”
“As a diamond kills an opal in the same setting.”
“I have noticed several ladies and gentlemen looking at me,” said Elfride artlessly, showing her pleasure at being observed.
“My dear, you mustn’t say ‘gentlemen’ nowadays,” her stepmother answered in the tones of arch concern that so well became her ugliness. “We have handed over ‘gentlemen’ to the lower middle class, where the word is still to be heard at tradesmen’s balls and provincial tea-parties, I believe. It is done with here.”
“What must I say, then?”
“‘Ladies and MEN’ always.”
At this moment appeared in the stream of vehicles moving in the contrary direction a chariot presenting in its general surface the rich indigo hue of a midnight sky, the wheels and margins being picked out in delicate lines of ultramarine; the servants’ liveries were dark-blue coats and silver lace, and breeches of neutral Indian red. The whole concern formed an organic whole, and moved along behind a pair of dark chestnut geldings, who advanced in an indifferently zealous trot, very daintily performed, and occasionally shrugged divers points of their veiny surface as if they were rather above the business.
In this sat a gentleman with no decided characteristics more than that he somewhat resembled a good-natured commercial traveller of the superior class. Beside him was a lady with skim-milky eyes and complexion, belonging to the ‘interesting’ class of women, where that class merges in the sickly, her greatest pleasure being apparently to enjoy nothing. Opposite this pair sat two little girls in white hats and blue feathers.