'Did you see any gowns you liked better than mine?' asked Lesbia, reclining reposefully, with her little bronze shoes upon the opposite cushion.
'Not one—Seraphine has surpassed herself.'
'You are always saying that. One would suppose you were a sleeping partner in the firm. But I really think this brown and buttercups is rather nice. I saw that odious American girl just now—Miss—Miss Milwaukee, that mop-stick girl people raved about at Cannes. She was in pale blue and cream colour, a milk and water mixture, and looked positively plain.'
CHAPTER XXVII.
LESBIA CROSSES PICCADILLY.
Lady Kirkbank and Lady Lesbia drove across Piccadilly at eleven o'clock on Wednesday morning to breakfast with Mr. Smithson, and although Lesbia had questioned whether it was worth while crossing Piccadilly to eat one's breakfast, she had subsequently considered it worth while ordering a new gown from Seraphine for the occasion; or, it may be, rather that the breakfast made a plausible excuse for a new gown, the pleasure of ordering which was one of those joys of a London life that had not yet lost their savour.
The gown, devised especially for the early morning, was simplicity itself—rusticity, even. It was a Dresden shepherdess gown, made of a soft flowered stuff, with roses and forget-me-nots on a creamy ground. There was a great deal of creamy lace, and innumerable yards of palest azure and palest rose ribbon in the confection, and there was a coquettish little hat, the regular Dresden hat, with a wreath of rosebuds.
'Dresden china incarnate!' exclaimed Smithson, as he welcomed Lady Lesbia on the threshold of his marble hall, under the glass marquise which sheltered arrivals at his door. 'Why do you make yourself so lovely? I shall want to keep you in one of my Louis Seize cabinets, with the rest of my Dresden!'