id I couldn't, as I remembered
I was already engaged. When I looked at my book I found it was with her
that I had already promised to dine. I like being asked twice; it shows
one is really wanted."

"Oh, we're all really wanted," said Jim. "But we don't always want
the people who want us. That is the tragedy. If you'll ask me to
dinner once, Mrs. Beaumont, I will transfer two of Mrs. Streatham's
invitations to you."

"There you are again! You are not kind. It would upset her table."

"Not at all. Her husband would dine downstairs, and her daughter would
dine upstairs. That is the advantage of having a family. You can always
make things balance."

"I have a family," said she, "and that is exactly why my bank-book won't
balance. But when I overdraw I always threaten to transfer my account.
Bankers will stand anything but that, won't they, Mr. Braithwaite? Let
us go and stroll. Dear Jim always talks so loud that I can't hear myself
think. And if I don't hear myself think I don't know what I shall say
next. Do tell me, was it on purpose, do you think, that Mrs. Halton and
Lord Lindfield missed their train? I may be quite wrong, but didn't you
think that Alice said it as if she had rather expected it?"

"Surely, she said she expected it."

"How interesting! What a heavenly garden! I only have just met Mrs.
Halton. Every one says she is too fascinating."

"She is perfectly charming," said he. "Is that the same thing?"

"Oh, not at all; you may be perfectly charming without being the least
fascinating. No man ever wants to marry a perfectly charming woman; they
only think it delightful when one of their friends does so."

Daisy had heard most of this as the two left the verandah and strolled
off down the garden, and the effect that it had on her was to make her
label Mrs. Beaumont as "horrid." She was quite aware that three-quarters
of the ordinary light conversation that went on between people who were
not friends but only acquaintances was not meant to be taken literally,
and that no one of any perception took it otherwise. Tribute to Aunt
Jeannie's charms had been paid on both sides; the woman had heard of her
as "too fascinating," Victor had found her charming. Daisy herself, from
her own point of view, could find no epithet too laudatory, and she
endorsed both the "fascinating" and the "charming." But she was just
conscious that she would have preferred that Victor should have called
her fascinating, and Mrs. Be