course it wasn't, my dear. Then why didn't Mary say so? Her Tact again, my dear. It always bores a real live ex-ambassador to have to stand corrected; and football is so plebeian that polo sounds nicer; and it really didn't matter a straw, so there was no use in being tediously literal, was there?
You don't see the point of the argument, and you still think, my dear, it was Mary's duty to make it clear that the game was football. Sorry not to agree with you, Miss Newnham; but we are sure we shall have the sanction of all parents and guardians when we lay down the axiom that it is a chief part of the whole duty of Woman never to bore an ambassador.
Had Mary been tediously literal she would probably not have received an invitation to Hurlingham any afternoon she cared to come during the season, which she promptly accepted with becoming gratitude. And then, before the Ex-Ambassador could take up his hat and rise from the sofa, she had asked the important question, Could Lord Warlock be so very kind as to give her advice how to get Philip into Parliament?
There was a question for you! Give her advice, mark you, young ladies. There was a great deal in that. The Ex-Ambassador fixed his monocle, of course, with a little pardonable magniloquence of bearing, like any other ex-ambassador would have done; looked about as wise as you make 'em, and said in the sharp dry
