“Ita thinks she drinks.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Miss Sinquier replied, covering her face with her hands.
Through her fingers she could contemplate her accompanist’s lanky figure as he stood in the opposite wing busily powdering his nose.
The moment, it seemed, had come.
Yet not quite—the public, who loved tradition, was determined on obtaining an encore.
Lady Mary was prepared to acquiesce.
Curtseying from side to side and wafting kisses to the gods, she announced:
“The Death of Hortense; by Desire.”