The door was open, and the woman and the child stood dumbfounded and overwhelmed in a scene of incredible desolation.
The air was acrid with the smell of burning. Blouses, pink and green, and cream, and blue, were stirred into a seething mass in the fireplace, as in a witch's cauldron, their fluffy laces burnt and blackened. Chiffon fichus torn in ribbons strewed the carpet. An ivory fan had been trampled into fragments on the hearth-rug, and a snow-storm of feathers from a white boa had drifted over the furniture. On the wash-stand a spangled white tulle hat lay drowning in a basin half full of water.
Their fluffy laces burnt and blackened. Chiffon fichus torn in ribbons strewed the carpet. [Page 138].
—Rosemary.
It was a sight to turn the brain of Madame in the magasin of smart "confections," nor would the presiding genius of the toy shop have gone scathless, for Rosemary's possessions had not been spared by the cyclone.
Dolls had lost their wigs, their arms, their legs; and beautiful blue eyes had been poked into far recesses of porcelain heads, with ruthless scissors. Little dresses of silk and satin had been flung to feed the flames which devoured ill-starred blouses; picture books had made fine kindlings; and that proud and stately mansion which might have afforded shelter to many dolls had collapsed as if shattered by a cyclone.
"Oh, Angel, is it some dreadful dream?" wailed Rosemary; and Evelyn found no answer. But Hugh had pounced upon a card pinned on the window curtain; and as he held it out, in eloquent silence, she read aloud over his shoulder; "Compliments of Mademoiselle de Lavalette."
At the end of the first shocked instant, they both laughed wildly, desperately. It was the only thing to do.