“By the masked professor.... Oh, the things he said; only fancy, he told me I’d cause the death of one both near and dear; Ita’s near ...; but she certainly isn’t dear—odious cat.”
“He must have thought you curiously credulous,” Miss Sinquier murmured, turning her head aside.
To her annoyance she perceived the scholarly representative of the Dispatch—a man of prodigious size—leaning solidly on a gold-headed cane while appraising her to Sir Oliver Dawtry, from her bebandeaued head to her jewelly shoes.
“She reminds me just a little of someone de l’Évangile,” she could hear the great critic say.
“Sylvester!”
“Oh?”
“Should he speak,” Mrs. Sixsmith murmured, wincing at the summer lightning that flickered every now and then, “don’t forget the mediæval nightie or the Mechlin lace! Five long yards—a cloud....”
Miss Sinquier buried her lips in her flowers.
Through the barred windows of the convent opposite, certain novices appeared to be enjoying a small saltation among themselves.
Up and down the corridor to the yearning melody of the minstrel players they twirled, clinging to one another in an ecstasy of delight.