Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/101

 Nothing, I determined, should surprise me; in Rome. . . And so forth and so on. We arrived in time for dinner, and almost the first thing I knew was that Sir Adolphus was pressing upon me something which I think he called a “Maiden’s Sigh”, which of course I imagined was the well-known hock of that name. Why hock before dinner? Sherry, if you like. . . But I had determined that nothing should surprise me. I drank it—what it contained, I do not know, but it was cold and, I suppose, very strong, for it went straight to my head! I could drink nothing at dinner until I had consumed an entire tumbler of cold water. Indeed, I hardly knew what I was saying, but Sir Adolphus was talking so interestingly about Rossini that I only wanted to listen. . . Later, when I had proved myself a good listener, it would be my turn to talk about Will. . . Now, you dine out very much more than I do. On those rare occasions when you meet somebody who can talk, is it not heart-breaking to have the conversation interrupted before you have half finished it? In the old days, when one turned like an automaton to one’s other-hand neighbour half-way through dinner, it was sufficiently exasperating; but one did hope that, if one had not wearied one’s companion too unwarrantably, he would come up in the