‘Not particularly,’ answered Nero, stifling a yawn. ‘And where do you live when you are at home, my pretty Poppæa?’ he asked, smiling at Daphne, who had lifted one languid arm to convey a ripe red cherry to lips that were as fresh and rosy as the fruit. ‘In Oxford Street,’ answered Daphne coolly. Miss Dibb’s eyebrows went up in horrified wonder; she gave a little gasp, as who should say, ‘This is too much!’ but did not venture a contradiction. ‘In Oxford Street? Why, that is quite a business thoroughfare. Is your father in trade?’ ‘Yes. He keeps an Italian warehouse.’ Martha became red as a turkey-cock. This was a liberty which she felt she ought to resent at once; but, sooth to say, the matter-of-fact Martha had a wholesome awe of her friend. Daphne was very sweet; Daphne and she were sworn allies: but Daphne had a sharp tongue, and could let fly little shafts of speech, half playful, half satiric, that pierced her friend to the quick. ‘I hope there is nothing that I need be ashamed of in my father’s trade,’ she said gravely. ‘Of course not,’ faltered the stranger. ‘Trade is a most honourable employment of capital and intelligence. I have the greatest respect for the trading classes—but——’ ‘But you seemed surprised when I told you my father’s position.’ ‘Yes; I confess that I was surprised. You don’t look like a tradesman’s daughter, somehow. If you had told me that your father was a painter, or a poet, or an actor even, I should have thought it the most natural thing in the world. You look as if you were allied to the arts.’ ‘Is that a polite way of saying that I don’t look quite respectable?’ ‘I am not going to tell you what I mean. You would say I was paying you compliments, and I believe you have tabooed all compliments. I may be ruder than Petruchio—didn’t you tell me so in the forest yesterday?—but any attempt at playing Sir Charles Grandison will be resented.’ ‘I certainly like you best when you are rude,’ answered Daphne. She was not as animated as she had been yesterday during their homeward walk. The heat and the supreme stillness of the spot invited silence and repose. She was, perhaps, a little tired by the exploration of the _château_. She sat under the drooping branches of the lime, whose blossoms sweetened all the air, half in light, half in shadow: while Martha, who had eaten a hearty luncheon, and consumed nearly a pint of Cliquot, plodded on with her crochet-work, and tried to keep the unknown in conversation. She asked him if he had seen this, and that, and the other—operas, theatres, horticultural fêtes—labouring hard to make him understand that her people were in the very best society—as if opera-boxes and horticultural fêtes meant society! and succeeded only in boring him outrageously. He would have been content to sit in dreamy silence watching Daphne eat her cherries. Such an occupation seemed best suited to the sultry summer silence, the perfumed atmosphere.