He chuckled at her description of the conversations.  "Sounds aboot as exciting as my last society event."  He had been known there and knowing he was single and an earl, the mothers and young daughters, and not so single older women had been hanging around him wanting his attention. 

"I would offer to switch groups, but I dinna  think I would do much better than yu dae in yurs.  All fluff and no brain.  If yu were intae art, I might invite yu tae a group I visit with when I gae in tae London.  But yu are nae intae the ordinary and these are completely ordinary."  He shrugged taking a sip of his tea. 

He thought about a group of old men at a park in London.  They had been professors when much younger, now they spent time in a park playing chess and arguing about old poets and writers.  He had painted them there and enjoyed their arguments about this or that topic.  There had been some equally older ladies sitting nearby popping in comments from time to time.  They had been old enough they didn't care who thought about them having argued with the men.  He had found out later that one was the wife of one of the men playing chess and the other had been a widow of a professor that had once been in the group.

Douglas always stopped by to bring in some scones when he was in London and visited with them.  He was always the youngest one there, and yet they didn't mind him being there.  They had all ended up hiring him to do paintings for their homes.  One of the couples, the others were of their grandchildren.  One of the men had bought the painting he had done of their group to put up in his study.