"She's new, isn't she? Jolly little party!" Thus Challis.
"You're not warm enough! Didn't you want to kiss her?"
"Yes, badly—when she gave your message—half-way up...."
Judith opened her eyes. You can't laugh with your eyes shut; you snigger. "She really gave it? Do tell me exactly! What did she say?" she asks delightedly, keeping her eyes open to hear the answer.
"She turned round on the landing, and became for the moment a mere mass of blooming conscience...."
"Is that—excuse me!—to be taken as language, or how?"
"No, no!—literally.... Blown flowers of intense truthfulness, and buds on the burst.... Well!—she said, as near as I remember: 'Miss Arkroyd said if Mr. Challis didn't smell too strong of smoke, only Mr. Elphinstone wasn't to hear.' And then she got away up the second flight with some alacrity. I thought she was afraid I might propose investigation, and Elphinstone was still in the neighbourhood."
Judith is intensely amused. "I shall have to give that child one of Sibyl's bead necklaces. Turquoise. It goes with her eyes exactly—they have just the violet tinge." She closed her own again on the slight subject, but it has suggested a weightier one. "Couldn't you give Estrild a little Visigoth ingénue—I mean Ostrogoth—to wait upon her?"
"What!—and train the little Rankshire beauty to the part? Think of her parents—the stage!—merciful Heaven!..." But Challis stops suddenly, discomposed by a discomposure in his hearer.
"Never mind," says she, shaking it off. "You didn't mean it. You're forgiven! Go on."