Will your Grace put on one of these? [With a curl of the lip.] They're both very becoming, I should think.

Duchess.

[Smiling sadly.] Becoming! as if that mattered, child!

Sophy.

Which will your Grace—?

Duchess.

[To herself, closing her eyes.] Couleur de rose—[to Sophy] er—that pink rag. Take off my collarette.

[Sophy lays the tea-gown and the robe over the back of the settee and proceeds to unfasten the Duchess's pearl collarette.

Mrs. Eden.

[Startled, by some passage in the book she is reading.] Oh, I say!