To the artist she gave her opinions on pictures or books--on the novels of Mr.
Wells, or the plays of Mr.Bernard Shaw--in the languid or drawling tone of accepted authority; dropping every now and then into a broad cockney accent, which produced a startling effect, like that of unexpected garlic in cookery.

Bentley's gravity was often severely tried, and Doris altered the position of her own easel so that he and she could not see each other.

Meanwhile Madame took not the smallest notice of Mr.
Bentley's niece, and Doris made no advances to the young man, to whom her name was clearly quite unknown.

Had Circe really got him in her toils?
Doris judged him soft-headed and soft-hearted; no match at all for the lady.

The thought of her walking the lawns or the drawing-rooms of Crosby Ledgers as the betrothed of the heir stirred in Arthur Meadows's wife a silent, and--be it confessed!--a malicious convulsion.
Such mothers, so self-centred, so set on their own triumphs, with their intellectual noses so very much in the clouds, deserved such sons! She promised herself to keep her own counsel, and watch the play.
The sitting lasted for two hours.