"Sylvia, dear," she interpolated, "I wonder that you will for ever
be arguing about things you don't understand."
Miss Armytage laughed good-humouredly. She was not easily put out
of countenance. "What woman doesn't?" she asked.
"I don't, and I am a woman, surely."
"Ah, but an exceptional woman," her cousin rallied her affectionately,
tapping the shapely white arm that protruded from a foam of lace.
And Lady O'Moy, to whom words never had any but a literal meaning,
set herself to purr precisely as one would have expected.
Complacently she discoursed upon the perfection of her own
endowments, appealing ever and anon to her husband for confirmation,
and O'Moy, who loved her with all the passionate reverence which
Nature working inscrutably to her ends so often inspires in just
such strong, essentially masculine men for just such fragile and
excessively feminine women, afforded this confirmation with all the
enthusiasm of sincere conviction.
Thus until Mullins broke in upon them with the announcement of a
visit from Count Samoval, an announcement more welcome to Lady
O'Moy than to either of her companions.
The Portuguese nobleman was introduced. He had attained to a degree
of familiarity in the adjutant's household that permitted of his
being received without ceremony there at that breakfast-table spread
in the open.
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