“And the queen?” she said faintly.
“She was a very wicked woman, madam,” declared the moralist, shaking up her pillows vigorously. “They do say that King Charles had an awful court; perhaps it was the fashion.”
“Perhaps it was,” admitted Lady Betty, and crept softly back to bed and wept salt tears in solitude.
CHAPTER XV
MY LADY SUNDERLAND TAKES TEA
A SMOKING teapot and some cups of India ware adorned a table of polished mahogany, the very best tea service in the possession of the landlord of the Lion’s Head. And before it sat Lady Sunderland and her intimate, Lady Dacres. Opposite, Lady Betty was stirring a cup of chocolate. There was a little black patch on her white forehead and another on the tip of her rosy chin, and her gown of gold-colored paduasoy became her well.
A servant brought in a tray with some glasses and a bottle of usquebaugh, and served the elder dames, who had been pretending to sip tea. The two worthies were just from the cockpit and had won forty pounds between them. Lady Sunderland, in a flowered brocade, with a painted and patched face, could do nothing but simper, and even old Lady Dacres grinned placidly, while the younger countess watched them from under her dark lashes and made no comments.
“La, Betty, there never was such an obliging man as young Savile,” said Lady Sunderland, sipping her usquebaugh; “he ran about at the cockpit to wait upon us, and his wit—take my word for it, we’d have lost fifty pounds but for his judgment of the birds.”