"
"'Tis brilliant," said Lady Joan to Mr Mountchesney.
"When you are here," he murmured.
"And yet a ball in a gallery of art is not in my opinion in
good taste. The associations which are suggested by sculpture
are not festive. Repose is the characteristic of sculpture.
Do not you think so?"
"Decidedly," said Mr Mountchesney. "We danced in the gallery
at Matfield this Christmas, and I thought all the time that a
gallery is not the place for a ball; it is too long and too
narrow."
Lady Joan looked at him, and her lip rather curled.
"I wonder if Valentine has sold that bay cob of his," said
Lord Milford to Lord Eugene de Vere.
"I wonder," said Lord Eugene.
"I wish you would ask him, Eugene," said Lord Milford, "you
understand, I don't want him to know I want it."
"'Tis such a bore to ask questions," said Lord Eugene.
"Shall we carry Chichester?" asked Lady Firebrace of Lady St
Julians.
"Oh! do not speak to me ever again of the House of Commons,"
she replied in a tone of affected despair. "What use is
winning our way by units? It may take years. Lord Protocol
says that 'one is enough.' That Jamaica affair has really
ended by greatly strengthening them.
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