“Madame Leroy? What do you mean?”
“And I haven’t got the ring, miss. When I asked Madagie for it this morning, she said, ‘When the young person calls, show her up to my private room at once.’ She said ‘young person,’ miss, meaning no offence, but the moment she claps her eyes on you she’ll know you are a lady born.”
“I don’t care what she calls me, Susan; if I must see her, I must, I suppose. Show me to her room at once.”
Susan ran on before me, past the first floor, and the second, and on to the third floor of the great house; where she paused, and knocked deliberately at a certain door which wanted paint, and was altogether very shabby.
“Come in,” said a voice, and I found myself in the presence of Madame Leroy.
I suppose this great artiste, as she would term herself, had a certain figure, manner, eye, tone which were capable of not only inspiring awe, but of tickling vanity, of whetting desire, of ministering to the weakest passions of the silliest of her sex. I may as well own at once that her arts were thrown away on me.
She was a handsome dark-eyed woman, full in figure, tall in stature, and with what would be called a commanding presence. I was only a slip of a girl, badly dressed, and with no presence whatever. Nevertheless, I could not fear the fashionable and pompous being.
“Will you kindly return me my ring, Madame Leroy?” I said brusquely.
Madame favoured me with a sweeping curtsey.
“I presume I am addressing Miss Lindley?” she said. “Pray take a seat, Miss Lindley—I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”