—and a bevy of peeresses trailing afterwards!”
Thurley let the actress in her shield the woman. She made laughable comments about the portrait, vowing that the color scheme of the room had given her new ideas for costumes, going through the rest of Parva Sed Apta with a careless demeanor.
The dining-room should have been a charming spot with its green English Chintz, dead white walls and red and gold furniture, but it was heaped with soiled dishes and curious cooking utensils piled high with “concoctions.”
“I had a fearful appetite the moment cook left,” Collin explained, “so I thought I’d try my luck.... They all tasted queer—like mixtures of carpet tacks and modelling clay. The way I explain it is the excess paprika and I had been modelling and neglected to wash my hands.”
“Oh, good,” Polly interrupted. “Show us what you were doing,” making him return to the studio to rescue the clay model of a bird with a newly broken wing.
“Splendid,” Polly declared. “There is a force—a stirring—il y a quelque chose,” turning to Thurley for approval.
“It hurts to look at it, poor little thing! It must have been from a gun and not an accident.”
Collin actually blushed. “You really feel that, too?”
“Of course—see how the wing drags—oh, why not model it complete?”