“Perhaps he doesn’t mind,” suggested Mrs. Blaine.
“Oh, I should say it’s part of the day’s routine,” said Miss de Latour. “He calls somewhere for her every afternoon. One can grow accustomed to anything.”
“They say she’s writing a novel,” confided Mrs. Long, “an acrimonious tale about all of us in the Capital.”
“How delicious,” cried Miss de Latour. “Dante will be jealous, I fear!”
“But it isn’t a novel,” Mrs. Blaine informed the group. “At least, that’s not what she calls it.”
“What is it, then?”
“Well,” said Mrs. Blaine, “I’ve never seen it—nor any of the other literary productions of which she is guilty, but she told me that it was a sort of allegory, a child’s story, called “The Fable of the Fairy Ferry-boat” . . . and she’s having it multigraphed for free distribution among the children of the English peerage.”
“Be careful,” cautioned Pamela de Latour, “here she is!”
Mrs. Hudson fluttered to the window in response to the summons of Azalea Deane. She waved a sprightly hand in the direction of the waiting car, and mouthed,
“Coming, directly, darling!” as though speaking to a young and inexperienced lip-reader.