She yawned. Throwing herself without ceremony on my bed she added, “It seems Mademoiselle was nearly crushed to a jelly in a hubbub at the theatre some weeks ago.”
“Ah! indeed. And they live at a large hotel in the Rue Crécy?”
“Justement. How do you know?”
“I have been there.”
“Oh, you have? Really! You go everywhere in these days. I suppose Mother Bretton took you. She and Esculapius have the entrée of the de Bassompierre apartments: it seems ‘my son John’ attended missy on the occasion of her accident—Accident? Bah! All affectation! I don’t think she was squeezed more than she richly deserves for her airs. And now there is quite an intimacy struck up: I heard something about ‘auld lang syne,’ and what not. Oh, how stupid they all were!”
“All! You said you were the only visitor.”
“Did I? You see one forgets to particularize an old woman and her boy.”
“Dr. and Mrs. Bretton were at M. de Bassompierre’s this evening?”
“Ay, ay! as large as life; and missy played the hostess. What a conceited doll it is!”
Soured and listless, Miss Fanshawe was beginning to disclose the causes of her prostrate condition. There had been a retrenchment of incense, a diversion or a total withholding of homage and attention coquetry had failed of effect, vanity had undergone mortification. She lay fuming in the vapours.