ad at length made him
feel that he did not satisfy their conception of a gentleman. The
simplicity of his manners did not convince them. They seemed to hold
by some complicated code of etiquette for ladies and gentlemen--Heaven
knew how they had become possessed of it--of which he fell sadly
short. He did not understand in the least their shibboleth of
flirtation, their particular methods of banter, the precise shade of
significance of their facial expressions and movements, the exact
values of their phrases and catch-words; all of which was knowledge
that, according to their notion, was the common stock-in-trade of
breeding. Their atmosphere of coquetry did not appeal to him; and, as
a rule, he remained supremely ignorant of the fact that they _were_
coquetting with him. Thus it was they giggled and laughed and made fun
of him, having attained to a vast feeling of superiority over him, and
a not less vast pity for their poor, dear sister, who had married him!

He could see that nature had made precisely the same failure with
their personalities as with their bodies. Each was a bundle of traits
that individually made "Cleo" echo through his brain, yet the total
effect lacked convincingness. In Cleo all such characteristics were
fused into her general magnificence; in Mary and Alice they seemed to
exist at random, failing to give any sense of harmony, but only one of
irritation. The airs and graces they assumed did but emphasise their
crudity. It was, indeed, an illumining perception when it struck
Morgan that their absurd movements and struttings and the queen-like
way in which they tried to hold their heads bore a singular
resemblance to the stage-gestures of "The Basha's Favourite." At the
same time they possessed a large fund of animal spirits. They talked a
good deal about dancing and sitting with young men in hidden corners,
or going a-rowing with them; though when or where they did any of
these things he could not quite make out.

Then again, the ostentatious love for the rest of the family and for
each other they had exhibited the first day turned out to be a
dependent variable that often approached vanishing-point. If the girls
showed a certain uncouth good-humour in their calm moments, they
certainly had violent tempers which they made no effort to restrain.
If Alice, attempting to pass along the narrow dining-room, caught her
dress on Mary's chair: "If anybody else were to sit like that----" she
would commen