“Be very sure of it,” Robin said.
“All goes well, then. No one need suspect. I go to attend to the bedchambers.” She went off with a rolling gait, and was found later in Robin’s room, twitting the solemn manservant.
Chapter 4
Mistress Prudence to Herself
From my Lady Lowestoft much might be learned of Society and Politics. She moved in the Polite World, and made something of a figure in it, for she had sufficient wealth, some charm, and a vivacity of manner that was foreign and therefore intriguing. There sat withal a shrewd head on her shoulders.
She was a widow of no very late date; indeed she had interred Sir Roger Lowestoft with all decency little more than a year back, and having for a space mourned him with suitable propriety she had now launched upon a single life again, which promised to be very much more entertaining than had been the married state. It must be admitted Sir Roger was little loss to his lady. She had been heard to say that his English respectability gave her a cramp in the soul. Certainly she had been a volatile creature in the days of her spinsterhood. Then came Sir Roger, and laid his sober person, and all his substantial goods at her feet. She picked them up.
“I am no longer so young as I was, voyez vous,” she had said to her friends. “The time comes for me to range myself.”
Accordingly she married Sir Roger, and as an Ambassador’s lady she conducted herself admirably, and achieved popularity.
She was ensconced now in her house in Arlington Street, with fat Marthe to watch over her, a monkey to sit in the folds of her skirts, as Fashion prescribed, and a black page to run her errands. She entertained on the lavish scale, her acquaintances were many, and she had beside quite a small host of admirers.
“You understand, these English consider me in the light of an original,” she exclaimed to Prudence. “I have an instant success, parole d’honneur!”