"It don't do to over-breed. You are bound to turn out some _toqués_ if not altogether idiotic, and then my sense of beauty is outraged by the freaks that happen in our shapes--you should see my two sisters, the plainest women in England. Now you give me joy to look at. You are quite beautiful, you know. I never saw any one with a nose as straight and finely cut as yours. Why do you keep putting your parasol so that I cannot see it?" "One uses a parasol to keep off the sun, which is hot. Would you wish me to get a sunstroke to oblige you?" And I put down my parasol still lower. "You are selfish!" in an aggrieved voice. "Of course." "And not the least ashamed of it!" "Not the least." He moved his position deliberately so that he came to my other side, where the sun was not. "I learned a certain amount of manoeuvring in South Africa, where I went for a month or two," he said. "I hope this side of your face will be as pretty. People always have a better and a worse side." I laughed. It was too hot to circumvent him again, and his looking at me could not hurt me. "This is even prettier," he said, presently. "Where did you hide yourself, that we none of us ever saw you before you married?" "I lived rather near here for a little while." "Now you look sad again. I never watched any one's face so much. Yours is not like other people's; you look like a cameo, you know." "Tell me about the people here," I said. "They are all strangers to me." "But I would much rather talk about you." "That does not interest me; you said I was selfish, so you do what I wish." "What can I tell you of them? They are like all companies--dull and amusing, mixed. They are a fair specimen of most people one meets in the _monde où l'on s'amuse_. My cousin Lady Grenellen is perhaps the most interesting among them, as she had the most histories." "Histories?" "Yes; her career has been one of riding for a series of falls, and escaping even a peck." "She is very lovely." "Oh yes, Cordelia is good-looking enough," he said, as though there was considerably more to add. I did not continue the subject further. We talked of books, the war, and various other things, and by-and-by our hostess called to us from the higher level of the old drawbridge where she was sitting. "We must be descending for some tea," she said, and started on with her politician. When we got back, Augustus was swinging Lady Grenellen in a lovely Louis XV. _balançoire_, fixed up between two elm-trees; she put one foot out, and looked so lovely and radiant! Augustus had the expression of one of those negro pages Thackeray drew in _The Virginians_--a mixture of pride and self-complacency--a he held the red silk ropes. Tea was so merry! No one was witty like grandmamma and the Marquis, but every one was in a good temper and it was gay.