Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/113

Rh himself as too explicit. He had looked astonished at her judgment of the lady of Eastmead.

"My dear Rose," he said, "I think you're greatly mistaken. Mrs. Beever much appreciates you."

She was silent at first, showing him a face worn with the ingenuity of all that in her interview with Dennis Vidal she had had to keep out of it and put into it. "My dear Tony," she then blandly replied, "I've never known any one like you for not having two grains of observation. I've known people with only a little; but a little's a poor affair. You've absolutely none at all, and that, for your character, is the right thing: it's magnificent and perfect."

Tony greeted this with real hilarity. "I like a good square one between the eyes!"

"You can't like it as much as I like you for being just as you are. Observation's a second-rate thing; it's only a precaution—the refuge of the small and the timid. It protects our own ridicules and props up our defences. You may have ridicules—I don't say so; but you've no suspicions and no fears and no doubts; you're natural and generous and easy"

"And beautifully, exquisitely stupid!" Tony