“If she had seen me she would have meant it in very truth,” I replied, “if she had witnessed me a few minutes ago.”
“Oh! what happened? Tell me everything. It would be lovely if you broke the proprieties of that drawing-room.”
Lilian was wearing a black velvet hat, which had a great plume of feathers that drooped a little over her face. Her hair was golden, and very thick and very shining. It was not, like mine, hanging down her back, but fastened in a thick knot very low on her neck.
“What did you do?” she said, and she clasped my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“I knocked over a small table; there was a solitary glass ornament in the middle.”
“What! Not the Salviati?”
“It was glass, not Salviati,” I said.
She laughed.
“Salviati is the maker of some of the most perfect opalescent glass in the world, and this was one of his oldest and most perfect creations. But you saved it?”
“I didn’t, Miss St. Leger. It is in pieces. It was taken away in something that a footman brought in; it doesn’t exist any longer. I have smashed it.”