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Arthur felt dimly that he was somehow involved in this condemnation, but he bravely rallied to the cause of law and order. “Don’t you think you ought to make some study of our world, too,” he said, “that is, supposing there is any division between artists and society people, if that is what you mean?”

“Oh, yes! And I have made one or two social studies already. This voyage has been a great opportunity.” She paused for a moment, took up a bit of stick for an eyeglass, and made a life-like pose-plastique of Lady May’s favourite attitude and manner. “Mr.—a—Campbell, I think—oh, yes—ah—I recollect meeting you—at the Duchess of A.’s—ah—was it not?”

She looked at him through her pince-nez as if he were one of the “common objects of the seashore” spoken of by naturalists, and somehow managed to give exactly Lady May’s little turn of the nose to her own much shorter and snubbier features.

Arthur laughed, but he felt vexed at the same time, and she observed the shade on his face.

“Oh! I see I ought not to do that sort of thing—bad form, I suppose. But then it is part of my outfit, you know, to study social peculiarities.”