"But the grizzly is grand in its den, dear," chided Dorothea Goodbody, a little louder.
"True. We do not fit everywhere," said the Violet, who had overheard them. "Imagine Thoreau in a salon."
"Or Talleyrand in the Walden woods," added Count L'Alienado.
More than one of the company had noted this as the third occasion on which his noble lordship avoided a meeting with the count. Was it that in the reserved Spaniard he had encountered a force which he could not overbear? Or was he jealous of the count's attention to the Violet? Twice at the Ryecroft's hop she had inadvertently answered the slender foreigner and turned her smooth, brown shoulder to the Englishman.
"Well," said Tristram, "the menagerie must perform without its lion."
"How flattering, brother!" cried Rosalie. Harry Arnold was leaning over her chair. "You compare us to wolves and panthers."
"Not unhappily," said the Violet. "Mine host is clever. He will put us all in an apologue like Aesop's. I am curious to see how I shall be transformed."
"The mood is wanting," cried Tristram, while the young ladies seconded the suggestion. "I am savage. I should affront you all with some furious satire."
"Imagine Tristram furious," said Harry.
"A smothered volcano. I have committed to-day the sin against the Holy Ghost. Guess what that is?"