“She is very—er—very—er—well!—pushing!” she said cautiously.
“Pushing! Oh, that’s nothing! I admire push. You must push nowadays if you want to be anywhere. But she is so—so vulgar! So very theatrical in private life! Yes!—your poem is lovely! Good-bye, dear! What an exquisite cloak!”
Moved by their mutual detestation of the Marquise Dégagée, these dear women kissed each other again—this time without looking over each other’s shoulders, and Mrs. Arteroyd departed in high satisfaction, leaving Mrs. Long-Adder to roll gently and voluptuously on her sofa-chair and to laugh to herself as she thought of the “effect” she would make on the mind of Prince Dummer-Esel, when dressed “in khaki”!
In a few days everything was arranged as triumphantly as the most ambitious advertisement-seeker could desire. Mrs. Arteroyd finished her “poem” effectively thus:—
“I ain’t much given to blubberin’,
But a somethin’ blinded my eye
When that there gal came to the station
Last night to wish me good-bye!
And now ’ere I am at Southampton,
Under orders from bloomin’ Pall-Mall,