"Dang her! I'll make her thoroughly disgusted with me," he said to himself. "I hate the handsome Semiramis!--She'd like to drag me at her chariot-wheels, and she shall not." "I believe," he continued, "that I could do something far better than the well-known specimen about the litter of rose-leaves and the noise of the nightingales." "Indeed, doctor," said her Ladyship, with a curl of her lip. "O yes," cried Scales. "Now, for instance, suppose that Leigh Court were to be let." "Leigh Court is not likely to be let," said her Ladyship haughtily. "No?" said the doctor, raising his eyebrows slightly. "Well, perhaps not, though one never knows. Your Ladyship might take a dislike to it, say; and if it were to go into the estate-agent's list--" "It never will, Doctor Scales! I should consider it a profanation," said her Ladyship haughtily. "Pray, change the subject." "Oh, certainly," said Scales politely.--"Been up to the Academy, of course?" "Yes," said Lady Martlett coldly. "There was nothing, though, worth looking at. I was terribly bored." "Hah! I suppose you would be. I had a couple of hours. All I could spare. There is some admirable work there, all the same." "I was not aware that Doctor Scales was an art critic." "Neither was I; but when I see a landscape that is a faithful rendering of nature in some beautiful or terrible mood, I cannot help admiring it." "Some people profess to be very fond of pictures." "I am one of those foolish people, Lady Martlett." "And have you a valuable collection, Doctor Scales?" "Collection? Well, I have a folio with a few water-colours in it, given me by artist friends instead of fees, and I have a few photographs; that is about all. As to their value--well, if sold, they would perhaps fetch thirty shillings." Lady Martlett looked at him angrily, for she felt that he was assuming poverty to annoy her. "Your Ladyship looks astonished; but I can assure you that a poor crotchety physician does not get much besides the thanks of grateful patients." "I noticed that there were a great many portraits at the Academy," said her Ladyship, "portraits of great and famous men." "Yes; of men, too, who are famous without being great," said the doctor, laughing. "Indeed!" said Lady Martlett. "I thought the two qualities went together." "In anyone else," said Jack, "that would be a vulgar error: in your Ladyship, of course, though it may be an error, it cannot be vulgar." "How dearly I should like to box your ears!" thought Lady Martlett, as she gazed at the provoking face before her. "He doesn't respect me a bit. He doesn't care for me. The man is a very stone." "Did you notice the portraits of some of the fashionable beauties, Doctor Scales?" she continued, ignoring his compliment, and leading him back to the topic on hand. "O yes," he said; "several of them, and it set me thinking."