"As I was never fond of sleeping alone, I had recently persuaded Amy to share my room, and this gave us extra time for conversation. As soon as the maid had left us on this eventful evening, I asked Amy what she thought of the first result of her scheme. "’Capital!’ she replied, ’things could not be moving better. Your father has a companion who suits him, so have I, and from what I could see you appear to be getting on fairly well.’ "When I told her what had passed, she laughed, saying that I was a born flirt with all my seeming artlessness, and that to arrive at the Adam and Eve stage the first evening was fairly good; but to end in private confidence about my relations with my husband was even better. "I asked her how she got on with the Major, saying that she seemed pretty merry on her return. "’Oh! he’s just delightful!’ she replied, ’but such a humbug! He tried to talk in epigrams, but as he is not over good at it, and endeavours to make them complimentary, the result was ludicrous. This is the kind of thing, you know.’ And she mimicked his voice and rather affected drawl. ’Nature is only natural when cultivated, and in your presence I feel that woman is only cultivated when natural.--As a girl puts on reserve she drops refinement.--The sound of gentle laughter is a sign of gentle breeding; the suggestion of prudery the seal of plutocracy; the coyness of the lips shows a canker in the life.’ When he got to this point I thought it best to turn back. On our return journey he perpetrated the following atrocity--’Two minus two is represented by the circle of eternal content: two plus two by a right angle which some unkindly fate has crossed.’ "’The great advantage of this kind of conversation is that you never have any occasion to understand it unless you like; the worst of the habit that it sometimes tempts the man to risk a remark which he dare not produce without its swaddling-bands. He must exhaust his brain terribly with the effort, and no doubt this is the reason that those who go in for this kind of affectation often seem so terribly stupid.’" *CHAPTER XI* "During the following month we made many new acquaintances, but the Major and Captain Frint were by far our most frequent visitors. Either Amy got over her dislike to epigrams, or her companion, on becoming more familiar with her, dropped the affectation, for they seemed fast friends. "Captain Frint, on the other hand, while seeming anxious to be with me, was strangely reserved, and the restraint which he obviously kept over his feelings piqued and irritated me. Whatever women may say to the contrary, I fancy that they seldom like a man to show that he is able to keep his admiration too completely under control. It tends rather to awaken a distrust in the force of attraction, and we would rather that he at times forgot himself sufficiently to enable us to rebuke and chastise him.