'I adore the frankness of that question! why, n--o,--I rather think I don't. But I'm not sure. However, to prevent their minding me, I must mind them. And it's vastly more irksome to give up one's own way, than to hear a few impertinent remarks. And as to the world, depend upon it, my dear Miss Tyrold, the more you see of it, the less you will care for it.' She then said she would leave her to re-invest herself in her own attire, and go downstairs, to see what the poor simple souls, who had had no more wit than to come back thus at her call, had found to do with themselves. Camilla, having only her common morning dress, and even that utterly spoilt, begged that her appearance might be dispensed with; but Mrs. Arlbery, exclaiming, 'Why, there are only men; you don't mind men, I hope!' ashamed, she promised to get ready; yet she had not sufficient courage to descend, till her gay hostess came back, and accompanied her to the drawing room. CHAPTER XII _Airs and Graces_ Upon entering the room, Camilla saw again the Officers who had been there in the morning, and who were now joined by Sir Sedley Clarendel. She was met at the door by Major Cerwood, who seemed waiting for her appearance, and who made her his compliments with an air that studiously proclaimed his devotion. She seated herself by the side of Mrs. Arlbery, to look on at a game of chess, played by Sir Sedley and General Kinsale. 'Clarendel,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'you have not the least in the world the air of knowing what you are about.' 'Pardon me, ma'am,' said the General, 'he has been at least half an hour contemplating this very move,--for which, as you see, I now check-mate him. Pray, Sir Sedley, how came you, at last, to do no better?' 'Thinking of other things, my dear General. 'Tis impossible in the extreme to keep one's faculties pinioned down to the abstruse vagaries of this brain-besieging game. My head would be deranged past redress, if I did not allow it to visit the four quarters of the globe once, at least, between every move.' 'You do not play so slow, then, from deliberating upon your chances, but from forgetting them?' 'Defined, my dear General, to scrupulosity! Those exquisite little moments we steal from any given occupation, for the pleasure of speculating in secret upon something wholly foreign to it, are resistless to deliciousness.' 'I entreat, and command you then,' cried Mrs. Arlbery, 'to make your speculations public. Nothing will more amuse me, than to have the least intimation of the subjects of your reveries.' 'My dear Mrs. Arlbery! your demand is the very quintessence of impossibility! Tell the subject of a reverie! know you not it wafts one at once out of the world, and the world's powers of expression? while all it substitutes is as evanescent as it is delectable. To attempt the least description would be a presumption of the first monstrousness.'