took that trouble for form's sake, like other women.

So, as Wylder had set a chair for me I could not avoid sitting upon it,
though I should much have preferred standing, after the manner of men,
and retaining my liberty.




CHAPTER III.

OUR DINNER PARTY AT BRANDON.


I was curious. I had heard a great deal of her beauty; and it had
exceeded all I heard; so I talked my sublimest and brightest chit-chat,
in my most musical tones, and was rather engaging and amusing, I ventured
to hope. But the best man cannot manage a dialogue alone. Miss Brandon
was plainly not a person to make any sort of exertion towards what is
termed keeping up a conversation; at all events she did not, and after a
while the present one got into a decidedly sinking condition. An
acquiescence, a faint expression of surprise, a fainter smile--she
contributed little more, after the first few questions of courtesy had
been asked, in her low silvery tones, and answered by me. To me the
natural demise of a _tete-a-tete_ discourse has always seemed a disgrace.
But this apathetic beauty had either more moral courage or more stupidity
than I, and was plainly terribly indifferent about the catastrophe. I've
sometimes thought my struggles and sinkings amused her cruel serenity.

Bella ma stupida!--I experienced, at last, the sort of pique with which