“I was here, in my sitting-room, talking to Sir Antony Thornhirst,” I said, almost laughing.  The picture of Mrs. Dodd at the bridge-table amused me to think of.  Augustus saw me smiling, and he looked less ruffled.

“She is an old wretch,” he said.  “I wish I had not to ask Willie Dodd every year, but business is business, and I’ll trouble you to be civil to them.  We will weed out the whole of this lot, gradually, now.  The mater will go off to Bournemouth at this time of the year, and so, by-and-by, we can have nothing but smart people.”

The evening passed in an endless, boring round.  This sort of company does not adapt itself as the people at Harley did.  With my best endeavors to be a good hostess, the uneasiness of my guests prevented me from making them feel comfortable or at home.

Mrs. Dodd’s impertinence would have been insupportable if it had not been so funny.

She complained of most things—­the draughts, the inconvenience of the hours of the train departures, and so on.

She was gorgeously dressed and hung with diamonds.  Without being exceptionally stout, everything is so tight and pushed-up that she seems to come straight out from her chin in a kind of platform, where the diamonds lose themselves in a narrow, perpendicular depression in the middle.

Antony sat next me at dinner, at one side; on the other was old Sir Samuel Wakely.  Mr. Dodd on his left hand had Miss Springle, the playful, giddy daughter of one of the guns.

She chaffed him all the time, much to the annoyance of his life’s partner, who was sitting opposite, and who, owing to an erection of flowers, was unable to quite see what was going on.

“Yes,” we heard Mr. Dodd say, at last, “I nearly bought it in Paris at the Exhibition.  Eh! but it was a beautiful statue!”

“I like statues,” said Miss Springle.

“Well, she was just a perfect specimen of a woman, but Missus Dodd wouldna let me purchase her, because the puir thing wasna dressed.  I didna think it could matter in marble.”

“What’s that you are saying about Mrs. Dodd?” demanded that lady from across the table, dodging the chrysanthemums.

“I was telling Miss Springle, my dear, of the statue of ‘Innocence’ I wanted to buy at the Exhibition at Paris,” replied Mr. Dodd, meekly, “and that you wouldna let me on account of the scanty clothing.”

“Innocence, indeed!” snorted Mrs. Dodd.  “Pretty names they give things over there!  And her clothing scant, you call it, Wullie?  Why, you are stretching a point to the verge of untruth to call it clothing at all—­a scarf of muslin and a couple of doves!  Anyhow, I’ll have it known I’ll not have a naked woman in my drawing-room, in marble or flesh!”

The conversation of the whole table was paralyzed by her voice.  My eye caught Antony’s, and we both laughed.

“There, there, my dear, don’t be even suggesting such things,” said Mr. Dodd, soothingly.