Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
been staying in his house. “Hospitality”? He meant well, but a guest has certain moral claims ; I could only give him two for hospitality. “Love of Music”? Five for that, so far as I remember. “Sense of Humour”? Nought! I couldn’t give him any marks for humour. “Amiability”? . . . But I cannot recall the questions; there were nearly forty of them.
I sighed again when Will collected the papers and added the totals. Then came the reading. My dear, I had been led to suppose that what we had written was all in secret, but I felt that Sir Adolphus was guessing how we had marked him. “Good looks”? He received nothing for that, not a single mark from the fifteen of us who were eating his food and drinking his wine. “Amiability”? About twenty, obviously given him by his wife and the Maitland boy, who was very busy ingratiating himself; or perhaps by one of those ambiguous young women who seemed to be on terms of such extraordinary freedom with him. . . “Humour”? Four or five. “Honesty”? Not more than fifteen or twenty. It was too terrible! He tried to laugh it off; but, when he got no marks, we were all exposed, and I saw him glaring at one after another. And there was one question—“Personal Charm”, I think—when Will read out “Minus ten.” . . .
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