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Campbell:“That’s no reason at all.” After a moment: “Are you going to have ice-cream to-day after dinner?”

Mrs. Somers:“I might. If I had company.”

Campbell:“Oh, I couldn’t stay after hinting. I’m too proud for that.” He pulls his chair nearer and joins her in examining the fan in her lap. “What is so very strange about your fan?”

Mrs. Somers:“Nothing. I was just seeing how a fan looked that was the subject of gratuitous criticism.”

Campbell:“I didn’t criticise the fan.” He regards it studiously.

Mrs. Somers:“Oh! Not the fan?”

Campbell:“No; I think it’s extremely pretty. I like big fans.”

Mrs. Somers:“So good of you! It’s Spanish. That’s why it’s so large.”

Campbell:“It’s hand-painted, too.”

Mrs. Somers, leaning back, and leaving him to the inspection of the fan: “You’re a connoisseur, Mr. Campbell.”

Campbell:“Oh, I can tell hand-painting from machine-painting when I see it. ‘Tisn’t so good.”

Mrs. Somers:“Thank you.”

Campbell:“Not at all. Now, that fellow–cavalier, I suppose, in Spain–making love in that attitude, you can see at a glance that he’s hand-painted. No machine-painted cavalier would do it in that way. And look at the lady’s hand. Who ever saw a hand of that size before?”

Mrs. Somers, unclasping the hands which she had folded at her waist, and putting one of them out to take up the fan: “You said you were not criticising the fan.”

Campbell, quickly seizing the hand, with the fan in it: “Ah, I’m wrong! Here’s another one no bigger. Let me see which is the largest.”

Mrs. Somers, struggling not very violently to free her hand: “Mr. Campbell!”

Campbell:“Don’t take it away! You must listen to me now, Amy.”

Mrs. Somers, rising abruptly, and dropping her fan as she comes forward to meet an elderly gentleman arriving from the landing: “Mr. Bemis! How very heroic of you to come such a day! Isn’t it too bad?”

II

[MR. BEMIS; MRS. SOMERS; MR. WILLIS CAMPBELL]

Bemis:“Not if it makes me specially welcome, Mrs. Somers.” Discovering Campbell: “Oh, Mr. Campbell!”

Campbell, striving for his self-possession as they shake hands: “Yes, another hero, Mr. Bemis. Mrs. Somers is going to brevet everybody who comes to-day. She didn’t say heroes to me, but–“

Mrs. Somers:“You shall have your tea at once, Mr. Bemis.” She rings. “I was making Mr. Campbell wait for his. You don’t order up the teapot for one hero.”

Bemis:“Ha, ha, ha! No, indeed! But I’m very glad you do for two. The fact is”–rubbing his hands–“I’m half frozen.”

Mrs. Somers:“Is it so very cold?” To Campbell, who presents her fan with a bow: “Oh, thank you.” To Mr. Bemis: “Mr. Campbell has just been objecting to my fan. He doesn’t like its being hand-painted, as he calls it.”

Bemis:“That reminds me of a California gentleman whom I found looking at an Andrea del Sarto in the Pitti Palace at Florence one day–by-the-way, you’ve been a Californian too, Mr. Campbell; but you won’t mind. He seemed to be puzzled over it, and then he said to me–I was standing near him–‘Hand-painted, I presume?'”

Mrs. Somers:“Ah! ha, ha, ha! How very good!” To the maid, who appears: “The tea, Lizzie.”

Campbell:“You don’t think he was joking?”

Bemis, with misgiving: “Why, no, it never occurred to me that he was.”

Campbell:“You can’t always tell when a Californian’s joking.”

Mrs. Somers, with insinuation: “Can’t you? Not even adoptive ones?”