He had replied, immediately:
"I shall be there, and we can talk of the ancestors—and other things," No, there must be no "other things" yet.
But what immense joy all this was to think about for me! I who had never in all my life been able to do as I pleased. Now I would nibble at my cake and enjoy its every crumb—not seize and eat it all at once.
On Tuesday morning I got a telegram from Lady Tilchester, sent from Paris. I had written to her some days before. She had run over to Ritz for a week, she said, to recover from her fatigues of the Saturday, and would I come into town, and lunch with her that day at half-past twelve?
With delight I started in my automobile. I had not seen her for months.
"Oh, you beautiful thing!" she exclaimed, when we met, "I have never seen such a change in any one. You are like an opening rose, a glorious, fresh flower."
She looked tired, I thought, but fascinating as ever. We lunched together in the restaurant, and had a long conversation.
She told me an amusing story of the American Lady Luffton, whom she had seen the day before. An expected family event had prevented her from gracing the Coronation.
"My dear"—and Lady Tilchester imitated her voice exactly—"it is a dispensation of Providence that circumstances did not permit me to attend this ceremony. You Englishwomen would have gone anyhow; but we Americans are different. But, I say, it is a dispensation of Providence, as I am considerably contented with Luffy and my position up to the present time. But if I had gotten there, stuffed behind with the baronesses, and had seen those duchesses marching along with their strawberry-leaves ahead of me, I kinder think I should have had a fit of dyspepsia right there in the Abbey."
After lunch we went up to the sitting-room. I meant to stay for half an hour before going back to Versailles.