"Well," I begin, thinking to myself it's very odd I haven't noticed it, "well, I should say"--really, I shouldn't say anything.
Madame nods at me. "Come," she says; "I know you've got penetration. You're an observer of character. You're a thinker. My nephew has told me you're writing a philosophical work. Now, I want you to lend me your sagacity, and confirm my suspicions."
_Happy Thought._--Look sagacious. Smile in deprecation of too much sagacity. I feel that, being right as far as mentioning Miss Adelaide goes, my next guess will probably be wrong. Risk it.
I say, "Miss Adelaide and Cazell, eh?" (They are walking together.)
Madame shakes her head. I have gone down in her estimation, evidently.
_Happy Thought._--To assume my own penetration. Say to Madame, "Ah, well, you'll see"--meaning, you'll find I'm right and you're wrong.
"No, no," she replies. "Mr. Cazell and Miss Bella, Mr. Chilvern and Miss Adelaide."
"H'm," I say, dubiously. Madame Regniati, classical, lover of high art as she is, is, when occasion offers, is simply a match-maker. I believe it's a feminine instinct.
"They've both got money," she adds. She has summed it all up, and arranged it.
AT DINNER.--WEIGHT.--WATCHING.--JOKES.--PROTEST.--AWKWARD SITUATION. --AN ANNOUNCEMENT.--INQUIRY.--ARRIVAL.--PRACTICAL JOKES.
This weighs on my mind. I can't help looking from one to the other--from Chilvern to Miss Adelaide, from Miss Bella to Cazell.
Milburd is more attentive to the latter than Chilvern, who seems to me to be making up to Miss Medford, if to anyone; while Byrton sits next to Miss Bella at dinner, and monopolizes her entirely.
Sly things _are_ passing; I notice _that_. As President, I have to sit at the head of the table, and can't join in any of the fun. They have got a joke among them that I can't make out. The joke flies about, like an invisible shuttlecock, between Cazell, Miss Adelaide, Chilvern, Miss Bella, and Byrton.
Jenkyns Soames sits on my right, and _will_ talk arithmetic and science to me.
The Medfords and the Frimmelys make another joke-party as it were, and I cannot understand what's going on.
_Happy Thought._--Look as if I did. Smile, nod, say "I know." Milburd asks, almost rudely, "_Do_ you? What is it?" As I don't, I merely smile again, and say "Yes" to Jenkyns Soames, who is giving me his reasons for supposing, by calculation, that vegetables have had a pre-adamite existence, and that even a turnip may have a glorious future before it, when man has disappeared from the face of the earth.