Cards had come for the Caithness function; cards for young Austin Wadsworth's wedding to a Charleston girl of rumoured beauty; Caragnini was to sing for Mrs. Vendenning; a live llama, two-legged, had consented to undermine Christianity for Mrs. Pyne-Johnson and her guests.
“Would Sylvia be ready for the inspection of imported head-gears to harmonise with the gowns being built by Constantine?
“When—
“Would she receive the courteous agent of 'The Reigning Beauties of Manhattan,' to arrange for her portrait and biographical sketch?
“When—
“Would she realise that Jefferson B. Doty could turn earth into heaven for any young chatelaine by affixing to the laundry his anti-microbe drying machine emitting sixty sterilised hot-air blasts in thirty seconds, at a cost of one-tenth of one mill per blast?
“And when—”
But she turned her head, looking wearily across the room at the brightly burning fire beside which Mrs. Ferrall sat, nibbling mint-paste, very serious over one of those books that “everybody was reading.”
“How far have you read?” inquired Sylvia without interest, turning over a new letter to cut with her paper-knife.
Grace ruffled the uncut pages of her book without looking up, then yawned shamelessly: “She's decided to try living with him for awhile, and if they find life agreeable she'll marry him.... Pleasant situation, isn't it? Nice book, very; and they say that somebody is making a play of it. I”—She yawned again, showing her small, brilliant teeth—“I wonder what sort of people write these immoral romances!”