"I do not think I could. He is not one of the persons I have remembered." "Agnes," said Bertha, "only wait with patience for one of those occasions when you feel it necessary to efface him, and then tell him that, in exactly that tone of voice, and he will in that instant secretly atone for the crimes of a lifetime. He won't wince, and he will probably reply in the most brilliant and impersonal manner; but, figuratively speaking, you will have reduced him to powder and cast him to the breeze." "We shall not be sufficiently intimate to render such a thing possible," said Mrs. Sylvestre. "One must be intimate with a man to be angry enough with him to wish to avenge one's self." Bertha smiled. "You don't like him," she said. "Poor Larry!" "On the contrary," was her friend's reply. "But it would not occur to me to 'begin with him,' as you suggested just now." "With whom, then," said Bertha, "would you begin." Her guest gave a moment to reflection, during which Bertha regarded her intently. "If I were going to begin at all," she said, rather slowly, "I think it would be with Colonel Tredennis." There was a moment of silence, and then Bertha spoke, in a somewhat cold and rigid voice, "What do you like about him?" she asked. "I think I like everything." "If you were any one else," said Bertha, "I should say that you simply like his size. I think that is generally it. Women invariably fall victims to men who are big and a little lumbering. They like to persuade themselves that they are overawed and subjected. I never understood it myself. Big men never pleased me very much--they are so apt to tread on you." "I like his eyes," said Agnes, apparently reflecting aloud; "they are very kind. And I like his voice"-- "It is rather too deep," remarked Bertha, "and sometimes I am a little afraid it will degenerate into a growl, though I have never heard it do so yet." Mrs. Sylvestre went on: "When he bends his head a little and looks down at you as you talk," she said, "he is very nice. He is really thinking of you and regarding you seriously. I do not think he is given to trifling." "No," returned Bertha; "I do not think he is given to anything special but being massive. That is what you are thinking,--that he is massive." "There is no denying," said her friend, "that that is one of the things I like." "Ah!" said Bertha, "you find the rest of us very flippant and trivial. _That_ is how we strike you!" A fatigued little sigh escaped her lips. "After all," she said, "it is true. And we have obliged ourselves to be trivial for so long that we are incapable of seriousness. Sometimes--generally toward Lent, after I have been out a great deal--I wonder if the other would not be interesting for a change; but, at the same time, I know I could not be serious if I tried." "Your seriousness will be deeper," said Mrs. Sylvestre, "when you accomplish it without trying."