"Not a bit," said Dolly. "Archie"s is--is rather foolish, Mr. Carter."
"So I suppose," said I.
"Dear boy!" said Dolly reflectively.
"I hate sentiment," said I. "Here"s a long one. Who wrote--?"
"Oh, you mustn"t look at that--not at that, above all!"
"Why above all?" I asked with some severity.
Dolly smiled; then she observed in a soothing tone.
"Perhaps it won"t be "above all" when you"ve written yours, Mr. Carter."
"By the way," I said carelessly, "I suppose Archie sees all of them?"
"He has never asked to see them," answered Lady Mickleham.
The reply seemed satisfactory; of course, Archie had only to ask. I took a clean quill and prepared to write.
"You promise to be sincere, you know," Dolly reminded me.
I laid down my pen.
"Impossible!" said I firmly.
"O, but why, Mr. Carter?"
"There would be an end of our friendship."
"Do you think as badly of me as all that?" asked Dolly with a rueful air.
I leant back in my chair, and looked at Dolly. She looked at me. She smiled. I may have smiled.
"Yes," said I.
"Then you needn"t write it quite all down," said Dolly.
"I am obliged," said I, taking up my pen.
"You mustn"t say what isn"t true, but you needn"t say everything that is--that might be--true," explained Dolly.
This, again, seemed satisfactory. I began to write, Dolly sitting opposite me with her elbows on the table, and watching me.
After ten minutes" steady work, which included several pauses for reflection, I threw down the pen, leant back in my chair, and lit a cigarette.
"Now read it," said Dolly, her chin in her hands and her eyes fixed on me.
"It is, on the whole," I observed, "complimentary."
"No, really," said Dolly. "Yet you promised to be sincere."
"You would not have had me disagreeable?" I asked.
"That"s a different thing," said Dolly. "Read it, please."
"Lady Mickleham," I read, "is usually accounted a person of considerable attractions. She is widely popular, and more than one woman has been known to like her."
"I don"t quite understand that," interrupted Dolly.
"It is surely simple," said I; and I read on without delay. "She is kind even to her husband, and takes the utmost pains to conceal from her mother-in-law anything calculated to distress that lady."
"I suppose you mean that to be nice?" said Dolly.
"Of course," I answered; and I proceeded: "She never gives pain to any one, except with the object of giving pleasure to somebody else, and her kindness is no less widely diffused than it is hearty and sincere."
"That really is nice," said Dolly, smiling.
"Thank you," said I, smiling also. "She is very charitable; she takes a pleasure in encouraging the shy and bashful--"
"How do you know that?" asked Dolly.
"While," I pursued, "suffering without impatience a considerable amount of self-a.s.surance."
"You can"t know whether I"m patient or not," remarked Dolly. "I"m polite."
"She thinks," I read on, "no evil of the most attractive of women, and has a smile for the most unattractive of men."
"You put that very nicely," said Dolly, nodding.
"The former may constantly be seen in her house--and the latter at least as often as many people would think desirable." (Here for some reason Dolly laughed.) "Her intellectual powers are not despicable."
"Thank you, Mr. Carter."
"She can say what she means on the occasions on which she wishes to do so, and she is, at other times, equally capable of meaning much more than she would be likely to say."
"How do you mean that, Mr. Carter, please?"
"It explains itself," said I, and I proceeded: "The fact of her receiving a remark with disapprobation does not necessarily mean that it causes her displeasure, nor must it be a.s.sumed that she did not expect a visitor merely on the ground that she greets him with surprise."
Here I observed Lady Mickleham looking at me rather suspiciously.
"I don"t think that"s quite nice of you, Mr. Carter," she said pathetically.
"Lady Mickleham is, in short," I went on, coming to my peroration, "equally deserving of esteem and affection--"
"Esteem and affection! That sounds just right," said Dolly approvingly.