"Does it?" asked the Baroness Sophie, not by way of questioning
the statement, but with a painstaking effort to talk
intelligently. It was the one matter in which she attempted to
override the decrees of Providence, which had obviously never
intended that she should talk otherwise than inanely.

"I don't know why I shouldn't talk cleverly," she would complain;
"my mother was considered a brilliant conversationalist."

"These things have a way of skipping one generation," said the
Gräfin.

"That seems so unjust," said Sophie; "one doesn't object to one's
mother having outshone one as a clever talker, but I must admit
that I should be rather annoyed if my daughters talked
brilliantly."

"Well, none of them do," said the Gräfin consolingly.

"I don't know about that," said the Baroness, promptly veering
round in defence of her offspring. "Elsa said something quite
clever on Thursday about the Triple Alliance. Something about it
being like a paper umbrella, that was all right as long as you
didn't take it out in the rain. It's not every one who could say
that."

"Every one has said it; at least every one that I know. But then
I know very few people."

"I don't think you're particularly agreeable to-day."