She turned at the moment to the opening of the door.
It was Tishy who at last appeared, and her guest had his greeting ready.
"We're talking of the delicate matters as to which you think it's better to dash right in; but I'm bound to say your inviting a hungry man to dinner doesn't appear to be one of them." The sign of Tishy Grendon--as it had been often called in a society in which variety of reference had brought to high perfection, for usual safety, the sense of signs--was a retarded facial glimmer that, in respect to any subject, closed up the rear of the procession.

It had been said of her indeed that when processions were at all rapid she was usually to be found, on a false impression of her whereabouts, mixed up with the next; so that now, for instance, by the time she had reached the point of saying to Vanderbank "Are you REALLY hungry ?" Nanda had begun to appeal to him for some praise of their hostess's appearance.
This was of course with soft looks up and down at her clothes.

"Isn't she too nice?
Did you ever see anything so lovely ?" "I'm so faint with inanition," Van replied to Mrs.Grendon, "that--like the traveller in the desert, isn't it ?--I only make out, as an oasis or a mirage, a sweet green rustling blur.

I don't trust you." "I don't trust YOU," Nanda said on her friend's behalf.

"She isn't 'green'-- men are amazing: they don't know the dearest old blue that ever was seen." "IS it your 'OLD blue' ?" Vanderbank, monocular, very earnestly asked.