himself, and merely found it warming to recall such things as they had
heard, with that peculiar gloating look. Alas! his anecdotes would never
earn for him that prize of persons in society, the label of a "good chap"
and "sportsman."

"Have you ever been in Baghdad?" he feebly asked.

The fat man did not answer; he had begun an anecdote, and in his broad
expanse of face his tiny mouth writhed like a caterpillar. The anecdote
was humorous.

With the exception of Antonia, Shelton saw but little of the ladies, for,
following the well-known custom of the country house, men and women
avoided each other as much as might be. They met at meals, and
occasionally joined in tennis and in croquet; otherwise it seemed--almost
Orientally--agreed that they were better kept apart.

Chancing one day to enter the withdrawing room, while searching for
Antonia, he found that he had lighted on a feminine discussion; he would
have beaten a retreat, of course, but it seemed too obvious that he was
merely looking for his fiancee, so, sitting down, he listened.

The Honourable Charlotte Penguin, still knitting a silk tie--the sixth
since that she had been knitting at Hyeres--sat on the low window-seat
close to a hydrangea, the petals of whose round flowers almost kissed her
sanguine cheek. Her eyes were fixed with languid aspiration on the lady
who was speaking. This was a square woman of medium height, with grey
hair brushed from her low forehead, the expression of whose face was
brisk and rather cross. She was standing with a book, as if delivering a
sermon. Had she been a man she might have been described as a bright
young man of business; for, though grey, she never could be old, nor ever
lose the power of forming quick decisions. Her features and her eyes
were prompt and slightly hard, tinged with faith fanatical in the justice
of her judgments, and she had that fussy simpleness of dress which
indicates the right to meddle. Not red, not white, neither yellow nor
quite blue, her complexion was suffused with a certain mixture of these
colours, adapted to the climate; and her smile had a strange sour
sweetness, like nothing but the flavour of an apple on the turn.

"I don't care what they tell you," she was saying--not offensively,
though her voice seemed to imply that she had no time to waste in
pleasing--"in all my dealings with them I've found it best to treat them
quite like children."

A lady, behind the Times, smiled;