'Chairmed,' minced Madame Carlotti.
'Lucia, take this chair by the fire. You must be frozen.'
'Ah, grazie, Sybil. What a perfectly meeserable climate you have in this London!'
'Just what I tha-a-y,' bleated Mr. Pyford, sinking into his chair in an apparently boneless heap. 'The other night, at a fella's thupper-party, I'——
'MRS. LE ROY JENNINGS.'
The resolutionist swept into the room clothed in black disorder, much as if she had started to dress in a fit of temper and had been overtaken by a gale.
She knew Madame Carlotti.—She did not know Mr. Norton Pyford, the
Norton Pyford.—She was glad to know him.
He muttered something inarticulate, and glancing at the ring of women about him, shrank into his clothes until his collar almost hid his lower lip.
'We were discussing,' said Lady Durwent, vaguely relying on the last sounds retained by her ear—'discussing—suppers.'
'Don't believe in 'em,' said Mrs. Jennings sternly; 'three regular meals—tea at eleven and four, and hot milk with a bit of ginger in it before retiring—are sufficient for any one.'