na,
and all that. Besides, he goes racing. They say his horse has a chance
of winning the Derby. Oh, you don't know what a distinguished family
they are! Well, anyhow, you see he's busy, and if they _do_ have
honeymoons every now and then--as no doubt they do--I really hardly see
what that matters to me."

"Frankly, nor do I," said Woodville.

"No, indeed; I like it better, because I don't mind telling you I've got
heaps of things on just now."

"You look as if you had," said Woodville dryly.

"Is this meant for an attack on my tie? You'll be wearing one like it
yourself in a fortnight! Mrs. Ogilvie's great fun. Yesterday she took me
with her and a sort of country girl, a clergyman's daughter from Earl's
Court, to buy a hat at Lewis's; (for the girl I mean). It was
_extraordinary_! The girl isn't at all bad-looking, but naturally wears
her hair _perfectly_ flat, with a kind of knob at the back, the wrong
kind. On the top of this the milliners stuck, first, the most enormous
hat, eccentric beyond the dreams of the Rue de la Paix, all feathers,
and said, Oh, quel joli mouvement, Madame! The poor girl, frightened to
death, thinking the birds were alive, tore it off. So then they tried on
those absurd, tiny, high, little things that require at least
twenty-five imitation curls to keep them up, and show them off, and in
which poor Miss Winter looked like an escaped lunatic. We tried
everything in the shop, and at last Mrs. Ogilvie said, 'Perhaps we had
better come again, later in the season, when the hats would be smaller,
or not so large.'--Do you know Miss Winter? She has _rather_ pretty red
hair, and a dazed intellectual expression. She's the sort of girl who
can only wear a sailor hat (I never saw a sailor in a straw), as they
call them, or perhaps something considered picturesque in the suburbs;
you know, with skyblue _crepe de chine_ strings under the chin. If
she'd only been an athletic girl we could have gone straight to Scott's,
and then we should have known where we were--but she's artistic, poor
thing." Bertie smiled mischievously.

"Your valuable advice doesn't seem to have been much use, then?"

"_Rather_ not! Especially as Mrs. Ogilvie has this craze about thinking
she's Oriental (I wonder who put it into her head), and _would_ order
absurd beaded things, like Roman helmets, when of course she'd look
delightful in a dark claret-coloured velvet sort of Gainsborough, with
dull brown feathers. But women are