'Yes, and still more people who listen to it charmingly,' he answered. 'I didn't know before tonight that you ever listened to nonsense or talked it. I always thought you were the person who solves all the Hard Cases in _Vanity Fair_--under different names.' 'I wonder you didn't think I won all the prizes in the Limericks,' said Hyacinth. 'I have my faults, Miss Verney, but I'm not blasphemous. Will you have an olive?' She accepted it. He lowered his voice to say-- 'How wonderful you're looking tonight!' 'What am I to say to that? I don't think people should make unanswerable remarks at dinner,' she said, trying to look reproving, but turning pink with pleasure. 'If people will look adorable at dinner--or anywhere--they must take the consequences,' said Cecil, under cover of a very animated discussion between Bruce and Miss Yeo on sixpenny cab-fares. Then for a second he felt a remorseful twinge of disloyalty. But that was nonsense; wasn't he obeying Mrs Raymond's distinct commands? Nothing would please her so much.... And to flirt with Hyacinth was not at all a disagreeable task. He reflected that Eugenia might have asked him to do something a good deal harder. Under the combined influence, then, of duty, pique, and a little champagne, he gave way to the curious fascination that Hyacinth had always had for him, and she was only too ready to be happy. He remembered how he had first met her. He had been dragged to the Burlingtons' dance--he loathed all large parties--and, looking drearily round, he'd been struck by, and asked to be introduced to, Miss Verney. She wasn't Eugenia, of course, and could never, he was sure, be part of his life. He thought that Eugenia appealed to his better nature and to his intellect. He felt even a little ashamed of the purely sensuous attraction Hyacinth possessed for him, while he was secretly very proud of being in love with Mrs Raymond. Not everyone would appreciate Eugenia! Cecil was still young enough to wish to be different from other people, while desiring still more, like all Englishmen, to _appear_ as much as possible like everybody else.