Mrs. Thorne raised her eyes--very fine and sparkling eyes they looked just then--to Geoffrey Arbuthnot’s face. ‘I shall like the sensation,’ remarked Geff. ‘To the usual forms of feminine caprice one should be indifferent. Snubbing means sincerity.’ ‘If you tell her she has worked out a proposition in Euclid right she will resent it, think you are offering her an affront under the veil of compliment.’ ‘Then I will speak of the propositions only in which she fails.’ ‘If you admire the flower she holds in her hand she will throw it away. If you say the sky is fair, she will remark that, for her part, she thinks it looks like rain. Once or twice,’ said Linda, ‘I have met Marjorie Bartrand at some village treat or flower-show. The girl is not out, or likely to come out. She possesses _one_ dress, I believe, the orthodox length of other people’s! And each time I have pitied the unfortunate young men who tried to make themselves agreeable to her.’ ‘I am not an agreeable young man, Mrs. Thorne, either in fact or intention. Your warnings are kind, but I think even a Bartrand and an heiress will find it waste of time to snub me long.’ As Geoffrey spoke a side gate of the hotel garden opened. The figure of a spare, wooden-structured old gentleman dressed in white nankeen, and with a white umbrella, outspread, walked in. ‘Why, there is Robbie! My dear good husband!’ exclaimed Mrs. Thorne, impulsively. ‘What in the world----’ ‘Allait-il faire dans cette galère?’ The quotation was put in by Gaston in an innocent voice. Now Dinah’s French studies had in her youth been conducted, for five terms, in a small and remote Devonshire boarding-school. Consequently she did not understand one word of the language as pronounced by Gaston. Her heart sank as she watched an amused smile play round Linda’s mouth. Already ideas were exchanged between these two people--dear friends once--from which she must, perforce, remain shut out. ‘Doctor Tho--orne! Doctor Tho--orne!’ And with playful undulatory movements of her parasol Mrs. Linda strove to arrest her husband’s attention. ‘Linda! Bless my heart, my love, I thought you were district visiting hours ago. Quite an unexpected pleasure.’ And, hat in hand, Doctor Thorne advanced up the path, dutifully obedient to his Linda’s call, to be introduced to Linda’s friends. He was an ultra Indian-looking, ultra curry-coloured old Company’s servant, considerably more than thirty years his wife’s senior, with a snow-white military moustache, projecting white eyebrows, mild, tired eyes, a very thick gold chain, a puggaree, and buff shoes. You could never look at Doctor Thorne without a certain surprise that he did not live in Cheltenham; so well was his appearance in tune with your recollections of the Cheltenham promenade winter garden, Montpellier lawn-tennis courts, and club windows blossoming over with generals, admirals, and old Indians.