Fled were all the outraged heroines of dog-eared novels in greasy circulation. The long reproaches, stilted protestations, vows, regrets and declarations had vanished. The nodding spinsters behind country counters who selected the literature of their clients and declared how affecting was this tale, how full of sensibility was that one, had gradually lost all definite shape like the volumes they doled out so assiduously. Fled, too, with the vapours of young maidenhood, were some of the sweets. Nevertheless I doubt there was not a soul to regret the old Phyllida save perhaps Betty and Dick Combleton, the Squire's youngest son away down in Hampshire.
Miss Sukey Morton began to talk to her of young Tom Chalkley. She told how he had passed their house, how he had looked up at the window, and how by the greatest ill luck she happened to be rather pale that morning. She babbled on about the imagined progress of an affair which had never truly existed. To Phyllida who should have been sympathetick, it was rather wearisome chatter. Suddenly Miss Morton shocked her dear Courteen very much by asking if she had discovered who was satirized in those twelve lines beginning ... Phyllida interrupted with a curt negative, so curt that her darling Morton regarded her with black-eyed curiosity.
"And how should I know, Sukey, how should I know?"
"My dearest Miss Courteen, there is no need to be angry about a simple question."
"These discoveries are all so low," complained Phyllida.
"Oh, vastly low, though for my part I think the hussy deserves censure since she has made every young woman ridiculous."
With this commentary Miss Morton left her friend, and Phyllida, wondering all the while if she knew the whole affair, was more than ever firmly determined to elope to-morrow afternoon with her Amor.
Chapter the Twenty-fifth
QUARTS OF BURGUNDY
THE old ballroom of the famous Daish's Rooms looked mighty cheerful on the evening of my Lady Bunbutter's rout and Mr. Francis Vernon's farewell entertainment.
The circular mahogany table with finely carved claw legs shone like the fine old piece of Spanish wood it was, that is to say, wherever it could secure a clear space for shining, being almost entirely clouded over by innumerable dishes of gruit and nuts, plates, silver knives and silver forks, two large horns of snuff and half-dozen pairs of branched candlesticks, while in the very centre surrounded by lesser fruits stood a magnificent pineapple.