Page:The Private Life, Lord Beaupré, The Visits (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893).djvu/120

110 That evening at dinner she stated to her companions that she had never seen a fatuity so dense, so serene, so preposterous as his lordship's.

"Fatuity, my dear! what do you mean?" her mother inquired.

"Oh, mamma, you know perfectly." Mary Gosselin spoke with a certain impatience.

"If you mean he's conceited, I'm bound to say I don't agree with you," her brother observed. "He's too indifferent to every one's opinion for that."

"He's not vain, he's not proud, he's not pompous," said Mrs. Gosselin.

Mary was silent a moment. "He takes more things for granted than any one I ever saw."

"What sort of things?"

"Well, one's interest in his affairs."

"With old friends surely a gentleman may."

"Of course," said Hugh Gosselin; "old friends have in turn the right to take for granted a corresponding interest on his part."

"Well, who could be nicer to us than he