'A typical product of the public school is hardly likely to appreciate an undisciplined creature with a streak of genius in him like Paul Filey.'
'Oh, I rather love him myself,' said the girl, lightly, 'only as Sophia says he does talk rather rot at times.'
With her hand on the tea-urn, releasing a stream of boiling water into the pot, Lady John glanced over the small thickset angel that poised himself on one podgy foot upon the lid of the urn.
'Sophia's too free with her tongue. It's a mistake. It frightens people off.'
'I often think,' said the young woman, 'that men--all except Paul--would be more shocked at Sophia--if--she wasn't who she is.'
'No doubt,' agreed her aunt. 'Still I sympathize with her parents. I don't see how they'll ever marry her. She might just as well be Miss Jones--that girl--for all she makes of herself.'
'Yes; I've often thought so, too,' agreed Hermione, apparently conscious that the very most was made of _her_.
'She hasn't even been taught to walk.' Lady John was still watching the girl's approach.
'Yet she looks best out of doors,' said Hermione, firmly.
'Oh, yes! She comes into the drawing-room as if she were crossing a ploughed field!'
'All the same,' said Hermione, under her breath, 'when she _is_ indoors I'd rather see her walking than sitting.'
'But that, too--it seems like so many other things, a question only of degree. Nobody objects to seeing a pair of neat ankles crossed--it looks rather nice and early Victorian. Nowadays lots of girls cross their knees--and nobody says anything. But Sophia crosses her--well, her _thighs_.'
And the two women laughed understandingly.
A stranger might imagine that the reason for Lady Sophia's presence in the party was that she, by common consent, played a capital game of golf--'for a woman.' That fact, however, was rather against her. For people who can play the beguiling game, _want_ to play it--and want to play it not merely now and then out of public spirit to make up a foursome, but constantly and for pure selfish love of it. Woman may, if she likes, take it as a compliment to her sex that this proclivity--held to be wholly natural in a man--is called 'rather unfeminine' in a woman. But it was a defect like the rest, forgiven the Lady Sophia for her father's sake. Lord Borrodaile, held to be one of the most delightful of men, was much in request for parties of this description. One reason for his daughter's being there was that it glossed the fact that Lady Borrodaile was not--was, indeed, seldom present, and one may say never missed, in the houses frequented by her husband.