"If it is me you mean," said Zoe stiffly, _"really_ I am _surprised._ You
forget we are at daggers drawn."
"No, I don't, dear; and parted forever."
Zoe smiled at that against her will.
"Zoe!" (penitentially).
"Frances!" (archly).
"Come cuddle me quick!"
Zoe was all round her neck in a moment, like a lace scarf, and there was
violent kissing, with a tear or two.
Then they put an arm round each other's waist, and went all about the
premises intertwined like snakes; and Zoe gave Fanny her cameo brooch,
the one with the pearls round it.
The person to whom Vizard fled from the tongue of beauty was a delightful
talker: he read two or three newspapers every day, and recollected the
best things. Now, it is not everybody can remember a thousand
disconnected facts and recall them apropos. He was various, fluent, and,
above all, superficial; and such are your best conversers. They have
something good and strictly ephemeral to say on everything, and don't
know enough of anything to impale their hearers. In my youth there talked
in Pall Mall a gentleman known as "Conversation Sharpe." He eclipsed
everybody. Even Macaulay paled.
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