a long upper lip, was
trying to understand a lady the audacity of whose speech came ringing
down the table. Shelton himself had given up the effort with his
neighbours, and made love to his dinner, which, surviving the
incoherence of the atmosphere, emerged as a work of art. It was with
surprise that he found Miss Casserol addressing him.

"I always say that the great thing is to be jolly. If you can't find
anything to make you laugh, pretend you do; it's so much 'smarter to be
amusin'. Now don't you agree?"

The philosophy seemed excellent.

"We can't all be geniuses, but we can all look jolly."

Shelton hastened to look jolly.

"I tell the governor, when he 's glum, that I shall put up the shutters
and leave him. What's the good of mopin' and lookin' miserable? Are you
going to the Four-in-Hand Meet? We're making a party. Such fun; all the
smart people!"

The splendour of her shoulders, her frizzy hair (clearly not two hours
out of the barber's hands), might have made him doubtful; but the frank
shrewdness in her eyes, and her carefully clipped tone of voice, were
guarantees that she was part of the element at the table which was
really quite respectable. He had never realised before how "smart" she
was, and with an effort abandoned himself to a sort of gaiety that would
have killed a Frenchman.

And when she left him, he reflected upon the expression of her eyes when
they rested on a lady opposite, who was a true bird-of-prey. "What is
it," their envious, inquisitive glance had seemed to say, "that makes
you so really 'smart'?" And while still seeking for the reason, he
noticed his host pointing out the merits of his port to the hawk-like
man, with a deferential air quite pitiful to see, for the hawk-like man
was clearly a "bad hat." What in the name of goodness did these staid
bourgeois mean by making up to vice? Was it a craving to be thought
distinguished, a dread of being dull, or merely an effect of
overfeeding? Again he looked at his host, who had not yet enumerated all
the virtues of his port, and again felt sorry for him.

"So you're going to marry Antonia Dennant?" said a voice on his right,
with that easy coarseness which is a mark of caste. "Pretty girl!
They've a nice place, the, Dennants. D' ye know, you're a lucky feller!"

The speaker was an old baronet, with small eyes, a dusky, ruddy face,
and peculiar hail-fellow-well-met expression, at once morose and sly.
He was always hard up, but bein