'Yes; do as you like, but spare me the details.'
Lady Cannon sighed.
'Ah, Charles, you have no romance. Doesn't the sight of these happy young people bring back the old days?'
The door shut. Lady Cannon was alone.
'He has no soul,' she said to herself, using a tiny powder-puff.
The young people, as they were now called, had had tea with her in her magnificent drawing-room. She had said and done everything that was obvious, kind, and tedious. She had held Hyacinth's hand, and shaken a forefinger at Cecil, and then she explained to them that it would be much more the right thing now for them to meet at her house, rather than at Hyacinth's—a recommendation which they accepted with complete (apparent) gravity, and in fact she seemed most anxious to take entire possession of them—to get the credit of them, as it were, as a social sensation.
'And now,' she said, 'what do you think I'm going to do? If you won't think me very rude' (threatening forefinger again), 'I'm going to leave you alone for a little while. I shan't be very long; but I have to write a letter, and so on, and when I come back I shall have on my bonnet, and I'll drive Hyacinth home.'
'It's most awfully kind of you, Auntie, but Cecil's going to drive me back.'
'No, no, no! I insist, I insist! This dear child has been almost like a daughter to me, you know,' pressing a lace-edged little handkerchief, scented with Ess Bouquet, to a dry little eye. 'You mustn't take her away all at once! Will you be very angry if I leave you?' and laughing in what she supposed to be an entirely charming manner, she glided, as though on castors, in her fringed, embroidered, brocaded dress from the room.
'Isn't she magnificent?' said Cecil.