"I've never met a bore yet!" said Clarissa.
"And I should say the world was full of them!" exclaimed Helen. But her
beauty, which was radiant in the morning light, took the contrariness
from her words.
"I agree that it's the worst one can possibly say of any one," said
Clarissa. "How much rather one would be a murderer than a bore!" she
added, with her usual air of saying something profound. "One can fancy
liking a murderer. It's the same with dogs. Some dogs are awful bores,
poor dears."
It happened that Richard was sitting next to Rachel. She was curiously
conscious of his presence and appearance--his well-cut clothes, his
crackling shirt-front, his cuffs with blue rings round them, and the
square-tipped, very clean fingers with the red stone on the little
finger of the left hand.
"We had a dog who was a bore and knew it," he said, addressing her in
cool, easy tones. "He was a Skye terrier, one of those long chaps, with
little feet poking out from their hair like--like caterpillars--no, like
sofas I should say. Well, we had another dog at the same time, a black
brisk animal--a Schipperke, I think, you call them. You can't imagine
a greater contrast. The Skye so slow and deliberate, looking up at
you like some old gentleman in the club, as much as to say, 'You don't
really mean it, do you?' and the Schipperke as quick as a knife.
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