"We like him very much, and I hope you did--even if you won't admit it. He's got a room in Frank's chambers, you know." "I didn't speak more than six words to him--he was up at the other end of the table by Bernadette. But I liked the look of him rather. Of course he was all of a flutter." "Oh, I daresay," smiled Esther. "But I thought we ought to risk that--and Sir Christopher felt quite strongly about it." Judith Arden appeared to reflect for a moment. "Well, I think he ought to be," she said judicially. "I wouldn't give much for a man who didn't get into a flutter over Bernadette, at first anyhow. She must seem to them rather--well, irresistible." "She's wonderfully"--Esther Norton Ward sought for a word too--"radiant, I mean, isn't she?" "And there isn't a bit of affectation about her. She just really does enjoy it all awfully." "All what?" "Why, being irresistible and radiant, of course." "That's looking at it entirely from her point of view." "What point of view do you suppose she looks at it from? That is, if she ever looks at it at all. And why not? They ought to be able to look after themselves--or keep away." "I really think you're a very fair-minded girl," laughed Esther. "Very impartial." "You have to be--living with them as much as I do." "Do you like it?" Judith smiled. "The situation is saved just by my not having to do it. If I had to do it for my bread-and-butter I should hate it like poison. But, thank heaven, I've four hundred a year, and if I spend the summer with them, it's because Godfrey and Margaret want me. The winter I keep for myself--Switzerland part of the time, then Rome, or Florence. So I'm quite independent, you see. I'm always a visitor. Besides, of course, nobody could be more gracious than Bernadette; graciousness is part of being irresistible." "I really do think that being pretty improves people," said Esther. "Well, as far as I can see, without it there wouldn't _be_ any Bernadette," Judith remarked, and then laughed gently at her own extravagance. "At any rate, she'd be bound to turn into something absolutely different. Something like me even, perhaps!" She laughed again, a low, pleasant, soft laugh, rather in contrast with the slightly brusque tone and the satiric vein which marked her speech. The laugh seemed to harmonise with and to belong to her eyes, which were dark, steady, and reflective; the tone and manner to fall into line with the pertness of her nose, with its little jut upwards, and with the scornful turn of her upper lip. Her figure and movements perhaps helped the latter impression too; she inclined to thinness, and her gestures were quick and sometimes impatient. "Come, you're not so bad," said Esther with her pleasant cordial candour. "Now I'm quite insignificant." "No, you're not. You've got the grand manner. I heard Godfrey say so." Esther laughed both at the compliment and at the authority vouched in support of it.