"Oh, if you please, your Ladyship, her Royal Highness sent me to tell you that she would be here at eleven o'clock to review her new army."
It was the last thing of which Belvane wanted reminding.
"Ah, Wiggs, sweet child," she said, "you find me overwhelmed." She gave a tragic sigh. "Leader of the Corps de Ballet"—she indicated with her toe how this was done, "Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Amazons"—here she saluted, and it was certainly the least she could do for the money, "Warden of the Antimacassars and Grand Mistress of the Robes, I have a busy life. Just come and dust this log for her Royal Highness. All this work wears me out, Wiggs, but it is my duty and I do it."
"Woggs says you make a very good thing out of it," said Wiggs innocently, as she began to dust. "It must be nice to make very good things out of things."
The Countess looked coldly at her. It is one thing to confide to your diary that you are bad, it's quite another to have Woggsseses shouting it out all over the country.
"I don't know what Woggs is," said Belvane sternly, "but send it to me at once."
As soon as Wiggs was gone, Belvane gave herself up to her passions. She strode up and down the velvety sward, saying to herself, "Bother! Bother! Bother! Bother!" Her outbreak of violence over, she sat gloomily down on the log and abandoned herself to despair. Her hair fell in two plaits down her back to her waist; on second thoughts she arranged them in front—if one is going to despair one may as well do it to the best advantage.
Suddenly a thought struck her.
"I am alone," she said. "Dare I soliloquise? I will. It is a thing I have not done for weeks. 'Oh, what a——" She got up quickly. "Nobody could soliloquise on a log like that," she said crossly. She decided she could do it just as effectively when standing. With one pale hand raised to the skies she began again.
"Oh, what a—"