He will probably call me a South African hero next; I wish he would keep his attentions to himself.
Last night we dined at the Darcey-Jacobs'. Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs is enjoying "one breath of life" at a hotel with the Major, and she has left quite a pathetic number of visiting-cards on all her friends, so that her short London season may be as full of gaiety as possible. Neither of us looked forward to the dinner-party being particularly lively, but we were a good deal amused at the turn the conversation took during dinner. I have often thought since that a certain dumbness which falls upon some entertainments can be dispersed if the subject of matrimony is started, and I will class with it a discussion on food, and personal experience at the hand of the dentist. Any of these three subjects can be thrown, as it were, into the stagnant deep waters of a voiceless party, and the surface will be instantly rippled with eager conversation.
Talk flagged a little in the private sitting-room of the hotel where the Darcey-Jacobs gave their dinner-party. Major Jacobs, in his guileless way, gave us an exhaustive list of the friends whom they had invited for that evening, but who had not been able to come; and this had a curiously depressing effect upon us all, and within ourselves we speculated unhappily as to whether we had been asked to fill up vacant places.
"Why are men always allowed to blunder?" said Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs, looking over her high nose at the gentleman next her, and tapping him on the arm with her lorgnettes.
Major Jacobs, from his end of the table, looked penitent but mystified.
"Happy is the woman," said Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs, "who has no men about her."
"I should like to have been born a widow," said a pretty girl with beseeching blue eyes and a soft, confiding expression, who sat a little lower down on my side of the table. And then the subject of matrimony was in full swing.
"Marriage is just an experience," said a shrill-voiced American widow who sat opposite. "Every one should try it, but that is no reason why one should not be thankful when it is over."
"I am much interested in what you say," said Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs, with a certain profound air suitable to so great a subject. One felt the want of the Jamiesons sadly during the ensuing discussion, and I almost found myself, in the words of Mettie, making the suggestion that marriage was a great risk.