at do you say we have missed?" Vera asked of James, and he now, on
his feet, said bravely, "For myself, a nasty chill." A chill--out
there!

* * * * *

Lucy was asked, Did she like it all, and boldly owned, All. "The dark
is like an eiderdown bed. Impossible to imagine anything softer." She
rubbed her eyes. "It has made me dreadfully sleepy," she said. "I
think, if you won't be horrified--" Vera said that she should go up
with her. James stooped to her cheek, Lord Considine bowed over her
hand.

In Lucy's room the pair had a long talk, all of which I don't pretend
to report. It began with, "I'm so glad that you take to poor
Considine. You are so very much his sort of woman. He's a dear, simple
creature, far too good for most of us--and a Nugent freak, I assure
you. They've never known the like in the County of Cork.... I like him
immensely, but of course he's too remote for the like of me. No small
talk, you know, and I'm aburst with it. I talk while I'm thinking, and
he when he _has_ thought. You understand that kind, evidently. I
suppose your clever husband is like that. Not that I don't get on with
_him_. We did excellently--I think he knew everybody that I could
think of, and I everybody he chose to mention. But Jimmy likes
Considine, you know.... By the way, it was very disgraceful of Jimmy,
but not so disgraceful as you might think. In its way it's a
compliment. He thinks so much of you--Oh, I may as well tell you the
shocking truth. He ran away. What a moth in the drawing-room ought to
do, but never can, Jimmy, not at all a moth, quite suddenly did. My
dear Mrs. Macartney, Jimmy ran away from you. Flying! I doubt it
profoundly. Wrestling, I fancy, fighting beasts at Ephesus. You have
doubtless discovered how enthusiastic Jimmy is. Most attractive, no
doubt, but sometimes embarrassing. As once, when we were in Naples--in
the funicolare, halfway up Vesuvius--Jimmy sees a party at the other
end of the carriage: mother, daughter, two pig-tailed children, _and_
a governess--quite a pretty gel. Jimmy was enormously struck with this
governess. He could see nothing else, and nobody else either, least of
all me, of course. He muttered and rolled his eyes about--his chin
jutted like the bow of a destroyer. Presently he couldn't stand it. He
marched across the carriage and took off his hat with a bow--my dear,
to the governess, poor gel! 'I beg your pardon,' says he, 'but I have
to tell yo