I ran round to the back to get in. Fortunately the chauffeur, who was a friend of Louis, knew me, and when I whined, he left the car he was cleaning in the garage, and opening a side door of the house, said, “Run in, purp—I’ll bet you’ve come to call on the bride.”
I had, and I ran through back halls and passages right up to her bed-room. She was dressing, not for her own dinner only, but for a fancy dress ball to be held in the house of a friend afterward. She looked like the most beautiful picture I ever saw. Most women don’t look like pictures, but she nearly always does. She was putting on the costume Sir Walter had told me about—the wasp creation, with the gauzy wings and fluffy flounces. The skirt was rather short, and showed pretty striped stockings—yellow and black, Sir Walter said they were. Then there were tiny little satin shoes—oh! she certainly was very gauzy, and waspy and pretty.
Miss Stanna, or perhaps I should now say Mrs. Bonstone, had a French maid dressing her—a well-trained one, for her mistress had scarcely to open her lips to give directions.
Once she murmured, “Trop serrée;” and another time she said, “Les gants jaunes.”
Her flowers were lovely—orchids that nodded like big insects, and looked the shade of her gown.
When she glided from the room, the maid, who was a merry-looking creature herself, stared after her, and said with quite an English accent, “She knows how to get herself up—the monkey.”
Her voice was kind when she said it. We dogs don’t take much stock in words; it’s the tone that counts with us.
I don’t believe Mrs. Bonstone would ever be unkind to any one, unless they deserved a good scolding, in which case I think she could give it.
Well, I travelled on behind the wasp gown down to the drawing-room. Mrs. Bonstone had greeted me politely, when I went in, but very dreamily. Her alert mind was not at present on dogs.
Sir Walter stood under the statue of a Grecian boy in the lower hall, and as usual was the essence of courtesy. He came forward to greet me, bowing his noble head politely, and never saying a word about my not having called sooner, escorted me into the fine, big room, which had been done over with furnishings in which a lot of gold glittered.