and
disappointment broke him down, and--such a fellow seldom breathed. If I
had not had him at Cambridge it might have been a different story with
me. So you need not look like his indignant champion.'

'I don't know what Arthur and I should have done without him,' said
Violet.

'Where's the aunt? I don't see her.'

'She never comes down to dinner, she is only seen in the evening.'

There was a sound in reply so expressive of relief that Violet caught
herself nearly laughing, but he said, gravely, 'Poor woman, then she is
growing aged.'

'We thought her much altered this year.'

'Well!' and there was a whole sentence of pardon conveyed in the word.
Then, after an interval, 'Look at John and his neighbour.'

'I have been trying to catch what they are saying.'

'They! It is all on one side.'

'Perhaps,' said Violet, smiling, 'it was something about chants.'

'Yes. Is it not rare to see his polite face while she bores him with
that kind of cant which is the most intolerable of all, and he quietly
turning it aside?'

'Is it cant when people are in earnest?' asked Violet.

'Women always think they are.'

'How are they to know?'

'If they hold their tongues'--a silence--Well!'

'Well,' said Violet.

'Where's the outcry?'

'Did you mean me to make one!'

'What could you do but vindicate your sex?'

'Then you would not have thought me in earnest.'

He made a funny pleased face and a little bow.

'The truth was,' said Violet, 'I was thinking whether I understood you.'

'May I ask your conclusion?'

'I don't exactly know. I don't think you meant we should never talk of
what interests us.'

'When they know when to hold their tongues, perhaps I should have said.'

'O, yes, that I quite think.'

Another silence, while Violet pondered, and her neighbour continued his
malicious listening to Miss Marstone, who spoke in a key too audible for
such a party. Presently, 'He has got her to the Royal Academy. She
has gone forthwith to the Prae-Raffaelites. Oh! she is walking
Prae-Raffaelitism herself. Symbols and emblems! Unfortunate John!
Symbolic suggestive teaching, speaking to the eye! She is at it
ding-dong! Oh! he has begun on the old monk we found refreshing the
pictures at Mount Athos! Ay, talk yourself, 'tis the only way to stop
her mouth; only mind what you say, she will bestow it freshly hashed up
on the next victim on the authority of Mr. Martindale.'

Violet was excessively entertained; and, w