"Never!" I say, proudly.
And I smile to myself as I think of my lover and bond-slave George, who never swayed, never could sway me in will, or mind, or heart. No, certainly, I have never been managed by anybody yet.
"Women ought not to have their own way," says Mr. Vasher. "After a while they go in for Women's Rights, and at last it comes to the husband's standing on the platform and holding the baby, while they hold forth upon everything in heaven and earth."
"I don't think those sort of people ever have anything so frivolous as a baby," I say, considering. "Talking of babies, do you know that you will see two at luncheon to-day? They are coming down for certain."
"Horrible!" he says shuddering. "If there is one sight more appetizing, clean, and savoury than another, it is a baby at table."
"Take care the mothers do not hear you," I say, as we enter the house; "they would never speak to you again if they did."
We have taken off our bonnets and pulled out our locks, have powdered or not powdered our hot faces as our habits or inclinations will, and we are sitting one and all in the cool dining-room eating cold lamb and salad. The griffins outside shadow themselves grotesquely on the drawn blinds; they seem to grin in upon us malevolently, with their great misshapen noses and curling wicked mouths. Everybody is talking at once, eagerly, alertly, as though the loss of his voice for two hours had been a severe trial, and he is determined to make up for lost time.
"I saw a man in church who was even smaller than I am," says Lord St. John to me, "and I was so pleased. Not but what I always console myself with a couplet that I saw somewhere once; it began—
