III
THE BABBLE OF A TEA
The entrance of Mrs. Croydon into Mrs. Harbinger's drawing-room was accompanied by a rustling of stuffs, a fluttering of ribbons, and a nodding of plumes most wonderful to ear and eye. The lady was of a complexion so striking that the redness of her cheeks first impressed the beholder, even amid all the surrounding luxuriance of her toilet. Her eyes were large and round, and of a very light blue, offering to friend or foe the opportunity of comparing them to turquoise or blue china, and so prominent as to exercise on the sensitive stranger the fascination of a deformity from which it seems impossible to keep the glance. Mrs. Croydon was rather short, rather broad, extremely consequential, and evidently making always a supreme effort not to be overpowered by her overwhelming clothes. She came in now like a yacht decorated for a naval parade, and moving before a slow breeze.
Mrs. Harbinger advanced a step to meet her guest, greeting the new-comer in words somewhat warmer than the tone in which they were spoken.
"How do you do, Mrs. Croydon. Delighted to see you."
"How d' y' do?" responded the flutterer, an arch air of youthfulness struggling vainly with the unwilling confession of her face that she was no longer on the sunny side of forty. "How d' y' do, Miss Calthorpe? Delighted to find you here. You can tell me all about your cousin Alice's engagement."
Miss Calthorpe regarded the new-comer with a look certainly devoid of enthusiasm, and replied in a tone not without a suggestion of frostiness:—
"On the contrary I did not know that she was engaged."
"Oh, she is; to Count Shimbowski."