“My dear Adelaide!” said Mrs. Baxter, enveloping her in a powdery caress.
“How wonderfully you’re looking, Mrs. Baxter,” said Adelaide, choosing her adverb with intention.
“Now tell me, dear,” said Mrs. Baxter, with a wave of a gloved hand, “what are those Italian embroideries?”
“Those?” Adelaide lifted her eyebrows. “Ah, you’re in fun! A collector like you! Surely you know what those are.”
“No,” answered Mrs. Baxter, firmly, though she wished she had selected something else to comment on.
“Oh, they are the Villanelli embroideries,” said Adelaide, carelessly, very much as if she had said they were the Raphael cartoons, so that Mrs. Baxter was forced to reply in an awestruck tone:
“You don’t tell me! Are they, really?”
Adelaide nodded brightly. She had not actually made up the name. It was that of an obscure little palace where she had bought the hangings, and if Mrs. Baxter had had the courage to acknowledge ignorance, Adelaide would have told the truth. As it was, she recognized that by methods such as this she could retain absolute control over people like Mrs. Baxter.
The lady from Baltimore decided on a more general scope.
“Ah, your room!” she said. “Do you know whose it always reminds me of—that lovely salon of Madame de Liantour’s?”