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Rh really, but he's a prig, if you don't misunderstand me. Not what you mean by a prig, but what I mean by a prig."

"What do you mean by a prig?" asked Charlie. "I mean the same, Edgar. I have often told him so."

Lucia put both her elbows on the table.

"I mean—what do I mean? I mean a man who thoroughly appreciates all that is beautiful and interesting and artistic and improving, and knows that he appreciates it. He likes other people to know it too; he never, for instance, appreciated you, Mouse, till you wrote that dreadful book about the slums, which bored me to tears; but, having appreciated that, he likes the world to know that you are staying with us. You give tone to our party—most of the party are full of tone. We are extremely alive and intellectual. In fact, there is hardly anyone here, except, perhaps, Maud and Chubby, who haven't done something. Oh, and you, darling Aunt Cathie. And Edgar likes the world to know there is plenty of tone in his house. I have tone, you know; you needn't think it, but I have. We never pause for a remark in our house—again I except Maud, who always does—something happens, somebody says something, whether the Dante Society are dining with us, or what Mouse calls the Amen Khyam Club."

"I never did," said Mouse.

"Perhaps not, but it would have been characteristic of you if you had."

"Then that would have been dull of her," said Charlie, "because if anybody says or does what is characteristic, it might as well never have been said or done at all. It was expected; it was only what you knew already."

Lucia looked at him quickly.

"Oh, Chubby, that's nearly a new idea," she said. "With a little care it might be made quite a new idea. It's quite true. Nobody is of the slightest interest as long as he behaves in the way you expect He's like a punctual train that gets to the stations when Bradshaw tells it to. Give me the South-Eastern, now. There's romance for you!"

Mouse looked scornful.

"We gave it you neatly written out when you came to us in July," she said, "and you motored instead."

"I suppose I was in a hurry," said Lucia. "You have to be at leisure to be romantic. Haven't you, Aunt Cathie? Brixham has heaps of leisure, and anything more romantic than the conduct of the Dean's wife when she was present at 'La Rouille'