“Does she speak with a brogue? I remember you told me she was very good. It must be difficult to keep from talking platitudes when one is very good.”
“You are quite wrong about her. You would like her very much,” he replied.
“She is one of those people, I suppose, who can only talk about their relatives, or their families, or about their friends’ children: how this one has got the hooping-cough, and this one is getting well of the measles!” She kept swaying one of the leaves between her finger and thumb impatiently. “What a strange way she does her hair; and what an ugly dress!”
“You must not talk that way about her—she is my great friend.”
“Friend! friend!” she burst out. “He thinks I will believe in friendship between a man and a woman.”
She got up, and said, turning round with an air of changing the subject, “Have you written to your friends about our engagement? You had not done so when I asked you lately.”
“I have.”
“All?”
“Well, not all.”
“Your great friend, Miss——what do you call her?”