An armchair was now wheeled forward, and Mrs. Harriet ensconced herself in it comfortably.
“I’m very tired to-night,” she remarked in her thick voice. “I’ve had a hard afternoon.”
“Poor darling!” cried Mrs. Bridgeman. “Fetch a glass of champagne for Mrs. Harriet somebody. Oh, would you, Mr. Brummich?”
Mr. Brummich, a gentleman with a remarkably foolish, ascetic face and a feebly-wandering sandy beard, was just about to hasten religiously towards the Moorish nook when the great Towle happened, by accident, to groan. Mrs. Bridgeman, started and smiled.
“Oh, and a glass of champagne for Mr. Towle, too, dear Mr. Brummich!”
“Certainly, Mrs. Bridgeman!” said dear Mr. Brummich, hurrying off with the demeanour of the head of an Embassy entrusted with some important mission to a foreign Court.
“Were you at work this afternoon, Harriet, beloved?” inquired Mrs. Bridgeman of Mrs. Browne, who was leaning back in the armchair with her eyes closed and in an attitude of severe prostration.
“Yes.”
“Which was it, lovebird? Hysteric Henry?”
“No, he’s cured.”