“When Cadminster helped himself to the letter! But, good heavens! you don’t mean to tell me,” cried Lady Millebrook, “that he ate it?”
“He did, he did!” cried Mrs. Tollebranch, throwing herself into her friend’s sympathetic embrace. “Now you know why I call him a Bayard, and look upon him as my truest, noblest friend. Now you know....”
“Why he is a cadaverous dyspeptic! Of course. That document must have completely wrecked his constitution.”
“It has,” interrupted Clarice, with a little shower of tears.
“I shall never say again,” remarked Lady Millebrook, as she took an affectionate leave of her dearest friend but four, “that Romance and Chivalry have no existence in these modern times. To jump into a den full of lions and things to get a lady’s bracelet or save a lady’s glove may sound finer, though I am not sure. But to eat another man’s love-letter, envelope and all, to save a woman’s reputation ... there is the true ring of heroism about it, the glow that ennobles an ordinary, commonplace action into something superb. And, unless I mistake, Pontoise invariably penned his amatory effusions upon the very stiffest of parchment wove.... Darling, Lord Cadminster must dine with us.... Next Thursday; I will not take No!” ended Lady Millebrook; “and he may rely upon it that if either Jedbrook or Mills presume to offer him anything rich or oleaginous, either or both of them will be dismissed next day!”
RENOVATION
The hands of the Dresden clock upon the white travertine mantelshelf of Lady Sidonia’s boudoir pointed to the small hours. There was a discreet knock at the door. The maid, a pale, pretty young woman, who was wielding the hair-brush, laid the weapon down, and answered the knock.
“Who is it, Pauline?” asked Pauline’s mistress, with her eyes upon the mirror, which certainly framed a picture well worth looking at.
“Her Grace’s maid, my lady, asking whether you are too tired for a chat?”
“Say that I shall be delighted, and give me the blue Japanese kimono instead of this pink thing. Will my hair do? Because, if it needs no more brushing, you can go to bed.”