"I don't see anything particular in his eyes or hair," pursued Mrs. Jackson.
"His features are fairly regular. But that always strikes me as insipid in a man."
"And he's not a good conversationalist."
"I'm bound to confess I've never heard him say anything clever," remarked the Vicar.
"No," smiled the curate; "one could hardly call him a brilliant epigrammatist."
"I don't think he's well informed."
"Oh, well, you know, one doesn't expect knowledge from army men," said the curate, with a contemptuous smile and a shrug of the shoulders. "I must say I was rather amused when he confessed he hadn't read Marie Corelli."
"I can hardly believe that. I think it was only pose."
"I'm sorry to say that my experience of young officers is that there are absolutely no bounds to their ignorance."
They had satisfactorily stripped James of every quality, mental and physical, which could have made him attractive in Mary's eyes; and the curate's next remark was quite natural.