“He’s like some great Bull. What do you suppose he talks about?”
The Countess d’Omptyda repressed a giggle.
“They tell me Don Juan was nothing nothing to him.... He cannot see, he cannot be, oh every hour. It seems he can’t help it, and that he simply has to!”
“Fortunately Lady Lavinia Lee-Strange will be in the landau as well!”
The Queen laid her cheek to her hands.
“I all but died, dear Violet,” she crooned, “listening to an account of her Ancestor, who fell, fighting Scotland, at the battle of Pinkie Cleugh.”
“These well-bred, but detestably insular women, how they bore one.”
“They are not to be appraised by any ordinary standards. Crossing the state saloon while coming here what should I see, ma’am, but Lady Canon of Noon on her hands and knees (all fours!) peeping below the loose-covers of the chairs in order to examine the Gobelins-tapestries beneath....”
“Oh——”
“‘Absolutely authentic’ I said! as I passed on, leaving her looking like a pick-pocket caught in the act.”