‘Magdalen, I do wish you and Michael could be married to-morrow.’ ‘Thank you.’ ‘Then your life would be brighter.’ ‘Who told you it was dull?’ ‘All your actions and words tell me so.’ ‘You and I are what they call quiet people,’ she remarked. ‘Not impressionable, and all that kind of thing.’ ‘I believe that is the general opinion of our characters.’ ‘Well, and people also seem to think that such creatures—pachydermatous, don’t they call animals with thick skins——’ ‘Has Michael been lending you some science primers to while away the time in the winter evenings? What a happy thought of his!’ ‘You haven’t answered my question.’ ‘They do—pachydermatous is the word.’ ‘They seem to think that, because we are not all on fire, and jerking about, for nothing, we can do without any excitement at all.’ ‘I have observed the existence of the delusion you speak of. Yes, thank you, I will have some more cake.’ ‘I don’t know what you think, but I feel to want more excitement than most people, and I get less. Last night, if I could have been sure that Michael would not have misunderstood me, I would have danced every dance with Otho Askam, if the result had been that not a woman would have spoken to me at the end of the evening. That’s the kind of feeling I have.’ ‘I can quite understand it. I wish you would have tried the experiment—say with me.’ ‘That would not have been at all the same thing. You are a very good young man, and Otho Askam is considered rather a bad one.’ ‘Michael is the best of us all.’ ‘It is not that I like bad people, but I like to sing in a different key from that used by all the rest. I should like to see them all looking as if the world were coming to an end.... By the way, Gilbert, are you such a very good young man? They say you are too great a friend of that timid creature we have been talking about, who only dances with engaged girls, to be very good.’ Gilbert started—within himself, not outwardly, stirred his tea, and said carelessly— ‘Perhaps I cultivate him for reasons like your own—because I am dull, and it makes people vexed.’ ‘Perhaps. He is very rich, of course. Gilbert, you have wished me such good wishes about Michael, it is only fair that I should wish you well in return. I wish Otho Askam would relieve you of those factories that I have heard you speak of. Then there would be more money in your coffers, and perhaps more chance of that marriage coming off, of which you have been speaking so kindly.’ ‘You are very good,’ said Gilbert, laying down his empty cup; ‘but gentlemen are not in the habit of twisting their friends’ pockets inside out, for their own advantage.’ ‘Oh no! But if the friend had a leaning towards commercial enterprise—a speculative spirit. It would be an amusement for him.’ ‘_If_ he had. But you know as well as I do that his tastes are not of that kind, but of the turf, turfy.’