"You couldn't see her," says Roger; "she spent her entire evening in the rose-colored ante-room with Gore." "What a shameless tarradiddle," says Sir Mark. "What did she wear?" asks Julia. "I can't remember. I think, however, she was all black and blue." "Good gracious!" says Dicky Browne, "has George Mainwaring been at it again? Poor soul, it _is_ hard on her. I thought the last kicking he had from her brother would have lasted him longer than a month." "Nonsense, Dicky," says Dulce; "I hear they are getting on wonderfully well together now." "I'm glad to hear it," says Dicky, in a tone totally unconvinced. "I don't think she is at all respectable," says Mrs. Beaufort, severely; "she--she--her dress was _very_ odd, I thought--" "There might, perhaps, have been a little more of it," says Dicky Browne. "I mean, it was such a pretty gown, that we should have been glad to be able to admire another yard or two of it. But perhaps that terrible George won't give it to her; and perhaps she liked herself as she was. '_Nuda veritas_.' After all, there is nothing like it. 'Honesty is the best policy,' and all that sort of thing--eh?" "Dicky," says Sir Mark, austerely, "go away! We have had quite enough of you." "How did you all like the McPhersons?" Dulce asks, hurriedly. "Now, there was one thing," says Dicky, who is not to be repressed, "how could any fellow enjoy himself in the room with the McPhersons? That eldest girl clings on to one like ivy--and precious tough old ivy too. She clung to me until I was fain to sit down upon the ground and shed salt and bitter tears. I wish she had stayed amongst her gillies, and her Highland flings, and those nasty men who only wear breeks, instead of coming down here to inflict herself upon a quiet, easy-going county." "Why didn't you get her another partner, if you were tired of her?" "I couldn't. I appealed to many friends, but they all deserted me in my hour of need. They wouldn't look at her. She was 'single in the field, yon solitary Highland lass.' She wasn't in the swim at all; she would have been as well--I mean, much better--at home." "Poor girl," says Portia. "She isn't poor, she's awfully rich," says Roger. "They are all rich. They positively look at the world through a golden veil." "They'd want it," says Dicky, with unrelenting acrimony; "I christened 'em the Heirs and Graces--the boys are so rich, and the girls think themselves so heavenly sweet. It is quite my own joke, I assure you. Nobody helped me." Here he laughs gaily, with a charming appreciation of his own wit. "Did she dance well?" asks Stephen, waking up suddenly from a lengthened examination of the unconscious Dulce's fair features. An examination, however, overseen by Roger, and bitterly resented by him.