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“My lord, do you see there Mrs Archibald?”

“What, the vaporous Mrs Archibald? But where is the grace of the woman we used to call the sylph of Belgravia?”

“She lost her chiffon covering in the London storm, my lord.”

“Some fat old dowager malignantly said of her that she was draped in her breeding, so thin and undulating did she appear. But, has the breeding disappeared also in the torrential rain? for she looks as strong as a horse—see these thick ankles, short wrists, and red arms. I always objected to that sylph in cream gauze, for one never could get at her, she lived de profil and one only could peep at her through side doors.”

“Who was her husband?” inquired the little artist.

“He was colonel of a crack regiment. His ideas were limited to two dogmas: the sense of military exclusiveness, and a profound horror of intellectual women. Like his wife he was well-bred.”

“Yes, my lord, but the Englishman has definite limits to his gentility; the brute, though dormant, lies ready to leap and bite when he is annoyed.”