Poor Mrs. Bromley, poor kindly little soul!
The tears sprang to her eyes.
It would have been a relief to have blotted her face against some neighbouring blouse or waistcoat and to have had a hearty cry.
“Excuse me, may I ask you to be so good——”
Just before her on the table was a stand for matches.
With a mournful glance she slid the apparatus from her in the direction of an adolescent of a sympathetic, somewhat sentimental, appearance, who, despite emphatic whiskers, had the air of a wildly pretty girl.
To have cherished such an one as a brother! Miss Sinquier reflected, as the waiter brought her tea.
While consuming it, she studied the young man’s chiselled profile from the corners of her eyes.
Supporting his chin upon the crook of a cane, he was listening, as if enthralled, to a large florid man, who, the centre of a small, rapt group, was relating in a high-pitched, musical voice, how “Poor dear Chaliapin one day had asked for Kvass and was given Bass. And that reminds me,” the speaker said, giving the table an impressive thump, “of the time when Anna Held—let go.”
Miss Sinquier glowed.