“Ah, there is Sunningdale,” she said. “Does he not look lost? He always looks like that at a menagerie. Yes, I will try to sound Martin, if you like. I must make him confide in me somehow, and be rather tender, and he will probably tell me, though he will certainly imitate me and my tendencies afterwards. He imitates people who take an interest in him--that is his phrase--too beautifully. I roared,”--Lady Sunningdale cast a quick, sideways glance at her friend,--“simply roared at some imitation he gave the other day of a somewhat elderly woman who took an interest in him. Yes. Poor Suez Canal! He loves parties; but one can’t let him bite everybody indiscriminately. Let us come back, dear Monica, and make the twin play. There he is sitting with Stella. He asked me particularly if she was coming. They are probably talking about golf or something dreadful. Stella is devoted to it, is she not? Yes. That’s the game where you make runs, is it not? I shall have to sound Martin very carefully. He is so quick. Sunningdale, please take Martin firmly by the arm, and if he tries to bite, by the scruff of the neck, and put him down at the piano. No, dear Monica, you can tell nothing by his face. He always looks absorbed and excited like that. If he was talking to you he would look just the same.” That also was premeditated and vicious, just in case poor Monica’s little love-making, which Martin had imitated so divinely, had not been wholly vicarious. If it had, her remark would pass unnoticed, if it had not--but there was no need to consider whether it had or not, for poor Monica had turned quite red at the mention of Martin’s imitation of the elderly woman who took an interest in him. CHAPTER XI