Catherine very soon, however, asserted her claim upon
his attention.
"Please do your duty and tell me about things," she begged.
"Remember that I am Cinderella from Bohemia, and I scarcely know a
soul here."
"Well, there aren't many to find out about, are there?" he
replied. "Of course you know Stenson?"
"I have been gazing at him with dilated eyes," she confided. "Is
that not the proper thing to do? He seems to me very ordinary and
very hungry."
"Well, then, there is the Bishop."
"I knew him at once from his photographs. He must spend the whole
of the time when he isn't in church visiting the photographer.
However, I like him. He is talking to my aunt quite amiably.
Nothing does aunt so much good as to sit next a bishop."
"The Shervintons you know all about, don't you?" he went on. "The
soldiers are just young men from the Norwich barracks, Doctor
Lennard was my father's tutor at Oxford, and Mr. Hannaway Wells is
our latest Cabinet Minister."
"He still has the novice's smirk," she remarked. "A moment ago I
heard him tell his neighbour that he preferred not to discuss the
war. He probably thinks that there is a spy under the table."
"Well, there we are--such as we are," Julian concluded. "There
is no one left except me."
"Then tell me all about yourself," she suggested. "Really, when I
come to think of it, considering the length of our conversations,
you have been remarkably reticent. You are the youngest of the
family, are you not? How many brothers are there?"
"There were four," he told her.
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