ust be completed by
innumerable impressions under differing circumstances. We recognize the
alphabet; we are not sure of the language. I am only mentioning the
point that Gwendolen saw by the light of a prepared contrast in the
first minutes of her meeting with Grandcourt: they were summed up in
the words, "He is not ridiculous." But forthwith Lord Brackenshaw was
gone, and what is called conversation had begun, the first and constant
element in it being that Grandcourt looked at Gwendolen persistently
with a slightly exploring gaze, but without change of expression, while
she only occasionally looked at him with a flash of observation a
little softened by coquetry. Also, after her answers there was a longer
or shorter pause before he spoke again.

"I used to think archery was a great bore," Grandcourt began. He spoke
with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of a
distinguished personage with a distinguished cold on his chest.

"Are you converted to-day?" said Gwendolen.

(Pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of opinion
about herself that might be entertained by Grandcourt.)

"Yes, since I saw you shooting. In things of this sort one generally
sees people missing and simpering."

"I suppose you are a first-rate shot with a rifle."

(Pause, during which Gwendolen, having taken a rapid observation of
Grandcourt, made a brief graphic description of him to an indefinite
hearer.)

"I have left off shooting."

"Oh then you are a formidable person. People who have done things once
and left them off make one feel very contemptible, as if one were using
cast-off fashions. I hope you have not left off all follies, because I
practice a great many."

(Pause, during which Gwendolen made several interpretations of her own
speech.)

"What do you call follies?"

"Well, in general I think, whatever is agreeable is called a folly. But
you have not left off hunting, I hear."

(Pause, wherein Gwendolen recalled what she had heard about
Grandcourt's position, and decided that he was the most
aristocratic-looking man she had ever seen.)

"One must do something."

"And do you care about the turf?--or is that among the things you have
left off?"

(Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely calm,
cold manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than other men,
and not likely to interfere with his wife's preferences.)

"I run a horse now and then; but I don't go in