Her sister Ophelia, who faced her over the silver and the flowers, proffered a contrast that was peculiar and piquant. The elder sister, a tall and supersensuous blonde, listened with languid frigidity to the banalities of the Reverend Jacob Mince. She was a large woman with eyes of a brilliant blue, supercilious yet pleasurable lips, and a Circassian countenance. A chain of amethysts glittered over the fulness of her broad bosom. Her fair hair was coiled in masses above her forehead, overshadowing her eyes and throwing into evidence the somewhat heavy sensuousness of her face. She talked little, and with an air of luxurious slothfulness that seemed in keeping with her expression of delectable and Lilith-like torpor. Above the blaze of hot-house flowers the eyes of this complacent beauty met those of Gabriel Strong. The pair had seen much of each other that winter in an incidental and desultory fashion. Castle Gabingly had been something of a hermitage, and a Greek-faced youth such as Gabriel had more vivid interest for the lady Ophelia than monotonous novels and the society of Lord Gerald her father. Gabriel Strong had fine eyes, a quick tongue, and a certain cynical quaintness in his attitude towards women. Miss Blanche Gusset reverted to the silent being at her elbow. “Are you asleep yet, Moses?” “Why a Semitic title?” “I often call people by the name that slips first off my tongue.” “A dangerous habit.” “Explain.” “For instance, you might greet Mr. Mince as Beelzebub.” “And not a bad thrust either. Gabriel, you are waking up. Please continue to preserve me from Mrs. Marjoy.” “Ophelia is looking well to-night,” said the man. Miss Blanche Gusset’s brown eyes sparkled. She popped an olive between her lips and descended once more to personal topics. “What an arrant humbug you are,” she said. “If I had Mrs. Marjoy’s temper I should conceive some diabolical revenge. Must I apologize for not being my sister?” “On the contrary, I am excellently placed.” “An ambiguous compliment, my dear archangel.” “Flattery is always ambiguous, Miss Gusset. I feel in a sympathetic mood. Please tell me how those fox cubs of yours are progressing.” His neighbor retorted with an ironical twinkle. “You may continue your meditations,” she said; “I shall reserve my remarks on cubs till Mrs. Marjoy begins gabbling in the drawing-room about that dear child of hers.” When the more spiritual element had departed Gabriel discovered himself partnered by that inestimable worthy Jacob Mince. The churchman, unctuously freighted, smacked his lips over a fat Havana. Mr. Mince was a tall and complacent person, with a bald pate, a watery eye, and a receding chin. He was a species of petty pope in his own parish, dogmatizing over pond and pigsty, ploughed fields, and the village pump. There was no imaginative or expansive breadth in Mr. Mince’s opinions. Yet he was nothing of an ascetic, and was wholly Christian towards his own stomach.