“Oh no, Poodles,” said the man perched on the fender.  “A Johnny I know tells me they ’re nothing to Sofia.”  His face was transfigured by the subtle gloating of a man enjoying vice by proxy.

“Ah!” drawled the small-mouthed man, “there ’s nothing fit to hold a candle to Baghda-ad.”

Once again his utterance enfolded all as with a blessing, and once again the world fell into its three departments:  that where they do you well; that where they do you better; and—­Baghdad.

Shelton thought to himself:  “Why don’t I know a place that’s better than Baghdad?”

He felt so insignificant.  It seemed that he knew none of these delightful spots; that he was of no use to any of his fellow-men; though privately he was convinced that all these speakers were as ignorant as himself, and merely found it warming to recall such things as they had heard, with that peculiar gloating look.  Alas! his anecdotes would never earn for him that prize of persons in society, the label of a “good chap” and “sportsman.”

“Have you ever been in Baghdad?” he feebly asked.

The fat man did not answer; he had begun an anecdote, and in his broad expanse of face his tiny mouth writhed like a caterpillar.  The anecdote was humorous.

With the exception of Antonia, Shelton saw but little of the ladies, for, following the well-known custom of the country house, men and women avoided each other as much as might be.  They met at meals, and occasionally joined in tennis and in croquet; otherwise it seemed—­almost Orientally—­agreed that they were better kept apart.

Chancing one day to enter the withdrawing room, while searching for Antonia, he found that he had lighted on a feminine discussion; he would have beaten a retreat, of course, but it seemed too obvious that he was merely looking for his fiancee, so, sitting down, he listened.

The Honourable Charlotte Penguin, still knitting a silk tie—­the sixth since that she had been knitting at Hyeres—­sat on the low window-seat close to a hydrangea, the petals of whose round flowers almost kissed her sanguine cheek.  Her eyes were fixed with languid aspiration on the lady who was speaking.  This was a square woman of medium height, with grey hair brushed from her low forehead, the expression of whose face was brisk and rather cross.  She was standing with a book, as if delivering a sermon.  Had she been a man she might have been described as a bright young man of business; for, though grey, she never could be old, nor ever lose the power of forming quick decisions.  Her features and her eyes were prompt and slightly hard, tinged with faith fanatical in the justice of her judgments, and she had that fussy simpleness of dress which indicates the right to meddle.  Not red, not white, neither yellow nor quite blue, her complexion was suffused with a certain mixture of these colours, adapted to the climate; and her smile had a strange sour sweetness, like nothing but the flavour of an apple on the turn.