"I never can remain in a room with musk," said Dolly defiantly, "without feeling faint. Out of politeness to Miss Dean, I have latterly ceased speaking of a weakness she considers mere affectation, but now I suppose I may feel myself at liberty to do so."
And without further apology Dolly, still looking very white and terrified, for that inexplicable transition from consciousness to insensibility was a new sensation to her, walked through into the conservatory followed by Mrs. Werner and another lady who chanced to be present.
"I never could forgive the first Napoleon for divorcing Josephine until I read that she liked—musk," said Dolly leaning against the open door and looking out over the lawns, from which already came the sad perfume of the fallen Autumn leaves. "Fancy a man whose family traditions were interwoven with violets having that horrible odour greet him every time he entered her apartments."
"But it never made you faint before," remarked Mrs. Werner, ignoring Josephine's peculiarities, and reverting to her friend's sudden illness.
"I never had so large a dose at one time before," retorted Mrs. Mortomley; "Miss Dean must have taken a bath of it I should think, this afternoon."
"Hush! dear," expostulated Mrs. Werner, and she put her arm round Dolly's waist and kissed her. Not even in the pages of old romance was there ever anything truer, purer, more perfect, than the love Lord Dassell's niece bore for Archibald Mortomley's wife.
Meantime, within the drawing-room, Miss Dean remarked to Antonia penitently,
"I really did think it was—not affectation exactly you know, but her way; I am so sorry."
Miss Halling raised her white shoulders with a significant gesture.
"She attributes it to the musk, but it was not really that, though I do think, remember, many perfumes are disagreeable to her. For instance, I have often known her order hyacinths, lily of the valley, lilac and syringa to be taken out of a room where she wished to sit, and I remember once when we were going to London together by train, her getting into another compartment at Stratford, merely because a fat old lady who was our fellow-traveller had thought fit to deluge her handkerchief with patchouli. But it was not the musk which made her faint. She takes too much out of herself. She is never still, she visits and talks enough for a dozen people. She was at a wedding yesterday morning, at a kettledrum in the afternoon, and then she came home and we all dined with the Morrisons. No constitution could endure such treatment," finished Miss Halling.