The plump little mistress of Government House, standing before a full-length mirror, in her boudoir, surveyed herself with intense satisfaction. Her arms and neck burst startlingly from the clinging sheath of the incomparable Doeuillet gown that was Jane Gerson's douceur for official protection; in the flood of morning light pouring through the mullioned windows Lady Crandall seemed a pink and white—and somewhat florid—lily in bloom out of time. Hildebrand's buyer, on her knees and with deft fingers busy with the soft folds of the skirt, answered through a mouthful of pins:
"Poor Cynthia; my heart goes out to her."
"Oh, it needn't!" Lady Crandall answered, with a tilting of her strictly Iowa style nose. "The Maxwell person has made me bleed more than once here on the Rock with the gowns a fond mama sends her from Paris. But, honestly, isn't this a bit low for a staid middle-aged person like myself? I'm afraid I'll have trouble getting my precious Doeuillet past the censor." Lady Crandall plumed herself with secret joy.
Jane looked up, puzzled.
"Oh, that's old Lady Porter—a perfect dragon," the general's wife rattled on. "Poor old dear; she thinks the Lord put her on the Rock for a purpose. Her own collars get higher and higher. I believe if she ever was presented at court she'd emulate the old Scotch lady who followed the law of décolleté, but preserved her self-respect by wearing a red flannel chest protector. You must meet her."
"I'm afraid I won't have time to get a look at your dragon," Jane returned, with a little laugh, all happiness. "Now that Sir George has promised me I can sail on the Saxonia Friday——"
"You really must——" The envious eyes of Lady Crandall fell on the pile of plans—potent Delphic mysteries to charm the heart of woman—that lay scattered about upon the floor.
Jane sat back on her heels and surveyed the melting folds of satin with an artist's eye.
"If you only knew—what it means to me to get back with my baskets full of French beauties! Why, when I screwed up my courage two months ago to go to old Hildebrand and ask him to send me abroad as his buyer—I'd been studying drawing and French at nights for three years in preparation, you see—he roared like the dear old lion he is and said I was too young. But I cooed and pleaded, and at last he said I could come—on trial, and so——"
"He'll purr like a pussy-cat when you get back," Lady Crandall put in, with a pat on the brown head at her knees.