“That’s quite true, strange thing among the cedar-boughs,” Mrs Chilleywater returned fingering the floating strings of the bandelette at her brow: “It’s lamentable; yet who is there doing anything at present for English Letters ...? Who among us to-day,” she went on peering up at him, “is carrying on the tradition of Fielding? Who really cares? I know _I_ do what I can ... and there’s Madam Adrian Bloater, of course. But I can think of no one else;--we two.” Mr Limpness rocked, critically. “I can’t bear Bloater’s books,” he demurred. “To be frank, neither can I. I’m very fond of Lilian Bloater, I adore her _welt-bürgerliche_ nature, but I feel like you about her books; I _cannot_ read them. If only she would forget Adrian; but she will thrust him headlong into all her work. Have _I_ ever drawn Harold? No. (Although many of the public seem to think so!) And please heaven, however _great_ my provocation at times may be, I never shall!” “And there I think you’re right,” the Ambassadress answered, frowning a little as the refrain that her daughter was singing caught her ear. “And when I sees ’im My heart goes BOOM!... And I topple over; I topple over, over, over, All for Love!” “I dreamt last night my child was on the Halls.” “There’s no doubt, she’d dearly like to be.” “Her Father would never hear of it!” “And when she sees me O, when she sees me-- (_The voice slightly false was Harold’s_) Her heart goes BOOM!... And she topples over; She topples over, over, over, All for Love!” “There; they’ve routed Sir Somebody....” “And when anything vexes him,” Lady Something murmured, appraising the Ambassador’s approaching form with a glassy eye, “he always, you know, blames me!” Shorn of the sombre, betailed attire, so indispensable for the town-duties of a functionary, Sir Somebody, while rusticating, usually wore a white-twill jacket, and black multi-pleated pantaloons; while for headgear, he would favour a Mexican sugar-loaf, or green-draped pugaree: “He looks half-Irish,” Lady Something would sometimes say. “Infernal Bedlam,” he broke out: “the house is sheer pandemonium.” “I found it so too, dear,” Lady Something agreed; “and so,” she added, removing a fallen tree-bug tranquilly from her hair, “I’ve been digesting my letters out here upon the lawn.” “And no doubt,” Sir Somebody murmured, fixing the placid person of his wife, with a keen psychological glance: “you succeed, my dear, in digesting them?” “Why shouldn’t I?” “...” the Ambassador displayed discretion. “We’re asked to a Lion hunt in the Land of Dates; quite an _entreating_ invitation from the dear Queen--; really most pressing and affectionate, but Princess Elsie’s nuptial negotiations and this pending Procès with the Ritz, may tie us here for some time.” “Ah Rosa.”