"Well, I've had a very pleasant visit. Blanford's a little paradise."
"Paradise I have always regarded as being peaceful."
"Yes," acquiesced his companion reflectively, "with all that Jonah went through, I don't remember as he had an unmarried sister."
There was silence for a moment, and then his Lordship abruptly changed the subject.
"What a charming, bright, fresh young life is Miss Arminster's! She dances through the world like--like--er--" And he paused for a simile.
"Like a grasshopper," suggested Mrs. Mackintosh, with marked disapproval in her tones. The Bishop had a trivial, not to say frivolous, strain in his nature which seemed to her hardly in accord with his exalted position.
"No, dear lady," objected his Lordship, "not a grasshopper. Decidedly not a grasshopper; say--like a ray of sunshine."
"Violet's a good girl," remarked his companion, "a very good girl, but in most things she is still a child, and the serious side of life doesn't appeal to her. I dare say she'd go to sleep if you read to her about Jonah."
"She did," admitted the Bishop; "but then of course," he added, wishing to palliate the offence, "it was a very hot day. I suppose, however, you are right. Serious things do not interest her--and that is--I should say--we are serious."
"I am," said Mrs. Mackintosh, "and at your time of life you ought to be; and if we stand here any longer looking at that chunk of brick in the broiling sun, we'll both be as red as a couple of beets."
No amount of sentiment could be proof against a statement of this sort, and they moved on.
Violet and Spotts had meantime sat themselves down on a convenient tombstone to while away the interval till luncheon was served.
"There are lots of things I want to talk to you about, Alvy," began the little actress, "and I never get the chance."
"Well, fire away," he replied. "You've got it now."
"In the first place," she said, "I don't like the way things are going here."
"Yes. We're not aboveboard. We're shamming all the while. Besides, we're doing nothing in our profession."
"It isn't straightforward, and I don't like it," she went on.
"Neither do I," he returned; "but there are other things I like less."
"Well, people falling in love with you, for instance."