While these three very large ladies were adjusting themselves to three somewhat small chairs, and they were accepting tea from a fresh brew duly procured by the assiduous Miranda, each lifted her black veil and scrutinized her surroundings and her company with a rather ruthless directness. It always seemed to the quailing hostess of the Acacias, the Chestnuts, the Elms, or of Beaconsfield Villas, when she met that glance that a personal apology was demanded from her.
All three ladies were unanimous in the opinion that Mrs. Lascelles’ callers were overdressed. And in their opinion to be overdressed was to be guilty of one of the seven deadly sins.
“I am convinced,” said Miss Laetitia Champneys, in an undertone to Lady Charlotte Greg, “that that girl in the preposterous hat with feathers is an actress.”
In the opinion of Miss Laetitia Champneys for any person to be an actress was to identify one’s self with the most elemental form of human degradation.
“Do you suppose I require to be told, Laetitia?” said Lady Charlotte, bridling. She felt that not only her sense of decency but also her knowledge of the world had been aspersed. “And that preposterous person with the eyeglass,” added Lady Charlotte, “is, of course, an actor-manager.”
Neither Miss Laetitia nor her elder sister, Miss Champneys, was quite sure what an actor-manager really was. They did know, however, that dear Charlotte was excelled by none in knowledge of the world.
Lady Charlotte, as is the way with Lady Charlottes all the world over, as the erudite inform us, put up her glasses. She proceeded to study the actor-manager, a rare species of wild fowl of which the Close of Marchester was mercifully free, in a manner which can only be described as remorseless. Yet the actor-manager appeared to suffer no embarrassment. He serenely changed his black-rimmed monocle from his left eye to his right, which, if not quite so fashionable as the other one, was rather perversely endowed with better powers of vision.
CHAPTER XIX
A SOCIAL TRIUMPH
FOR almost the space of a minute a battle royal was waged between the monocle and the long-handled folders. All present, with the exception of Miss Perry, who was not in the habit of observing anything, sat in breathless silence to observe the issue. And incredible as it may appear, the issue was not with the long-handled folders.
“Capital!” murmured the victor, to nobody in particular, and for no apparent reason.