“She means to do it—to cross the desert alone! O, shameless!” openly cried the Duchess Pyllboxe-Beauchamp.
“She’d better keep her fingers crossed at the same time!”
This from that old Lady Speedway, of course.
“Ah,” murmured in the next balcony the Hon. Maude Tetherington, a cute spinster of sixty who would remember you in her will if you told her she didn’t look it, “Ah!” and it was as if she were murmuring to herself.
“Once I dreamed of riding in the desert and of a great, handsome Arab pursuing me and——” it was, as stated, as if she were speaking to herself but you bet Lady Speedway got it.
“And what?” Lady Speedway demanded with a cold look in her eye.
“There was no offense to the proprieties,” said the Hon. Maude with trembling accents. “I assure you I woke up in time.”
The Hon. Maude drew her head within and snapped the lattices of her window shut.
But a little later as she stood at her mirror tacking on her front curls she paused, hammer in hand, to stare back in the direction she had last seen Lady Speedway.