“It will require something of that kind to set you right, after your promenade with the lady we don’t care to mention. But, wait one moment, I had forgotten what brought me here. Mrs. Lambert, do give me your advice. I have a card for that Mrs. Carter’s party. What shall I do about it?”
Mrs. Lambert looked up quickly, and a flush of unusual color came into her face.
“I—I beg pardon; what did you say, Miss Spicer?”
“Only if I can venture on accepting. She is so awful shoddy, it will be great fun.”
“I have received cards,” answered Mrs. Lambert, quietly, “and it is probable that I may accept.”
Miss Spicer let her parasol drop to the floor, and clapped both hands.
“That is splendid! Then we can all accept. They tell me her house was like a curiosity-shop, when her brother, a great artist, came from abroad, and pitched all the trash she had been collecting, into the stable. He’s splendid, every one says! Awfully handsome, and so aristocratic. I know half a dozen girls that are dying to go on his account. The wall-flowers are all in a flutter, I can tell you, for he isn’t young.”
Mrs. Lambert arose hastily, walked across the room, and re-arranged the folds of an amber-satin curtain, that fell over a broad window of the boudoir. In her nervous haste, she loosened the heavy cords that held it, flooding the window with silken drapery, and the room with mellow, golden light.
Miss Spicer laughed, lifted her parasol from the floor, and began gathering up the folds of silk with it, thus throwing Mrs. Lambert’s face into full light.
“Why, how strangely you look!” she said, in her reckless way. “Pale as a ghost! Wanted air, and going to open the window. I’ll do it for you.”