Lesbia was inclined to remonstrate. She did not admire the description of the costume, she would rather have something less outrageous.
'Outrageous! It is only original,' exclaimed her chaperon. 'If Chaumont wears it you may be sure it is perfect.'
'But on the stage, by gaslight, in the midst of unrealities,' argued Lesbia. 'That makes such a difference.'
'My dear, there is no difference nowadays between the stage and the drawing-room. Whatever Chaumont wears you may wear. And now let us think of the second day. I think as your first costume is to be nautical, and rather masculine, your second should be somewhat languishing and vaporeux. Creamy Indian muslin, wild flowers, a large Leghorn hat.'
'And what will Miladi herself wear?' asked the French woman of Lady Kirkbank. 'She must have something of new.'
'No, at my age, it doesn't matter. I shall wear one of my cotton frocks, and my Dunstable hat.'
Lesbia shuddered, for Lady Kirkbank in her cotton frock was a spectacle at which youth laughed and age blushed. But after all it did not matter to Lesbia. She would have liked a less rowdy chaperon; but as a foil to her own fresh young beauty Lady Kirkbank was admirable.
They drove down to Rood Hall early next week, Sir George conveying them in his drag, with a change of horses at Maidenhead. The weather was peerless; the country exquisite, approached from London. How different that river landscape looks to the eyes of the traveller returning from the wild West of England, the wooded gorges of Cornwall and Devon, the Tamar and the Dart. Then how small and poor and mean seems silvery Thames, gliding peacefully between his willowy bank, singing his lullaby to the whispering sedges; a poor little river, a flat commonplace landscape, says the traveller, fresh from moorland and tor, from the rocky shore of the Atlantic, the deep clefts of the great, red hills.
To Lesbia's eyes the placid stream and the green pastures, breathing odours of meadow-sweet and clover, seemed passing lovely. She was pleased with her own hat and parasol too, which made her graciously disposed towards the landscape; and the last packet of gloves from North Audley Street fitted without a wrinkle. The glovemaker was beginning to understand her hand, which was a study for a sculptor, but which had its little peculiarities.
Nor was she ill-disposed to Mr. Smithson, who had come up to town by an early train, in order to lunch in Arlington Street and go back by coach, seated just behind Lady Lesbia, who had the box seat beside Sir George.