Elderly Countess (with no daughters). Eh, what? Tooth hurtin’? Have it out, my dear. Or try mind healin’. It’s very expensive, but Susan Southwater tells me——
Lady A. Oh, Susan! She’s always got some bee in her bonnet. Though how any self-respecting bee could! But I wasn’t talking about teeth. It’s this wretched paper. Listen to this. “One of the prettiest débutantes I saw was Miss Nora Angleby, whose mother, Lady Angleby, was wearing nothing but a string of pearls——”
E. C. Have ’em up for libel, my dear. I wouldn’t stand it.
Lady A. “—nothing but a string of pearls with her white frock, and looking so delightfully young. Everyone was saying that they might be sisters.” Isn’t it too silly?
E. C. H’m! I dunno. You do look youngish sometimes. As for the frock—don’t you think it was a leetle too—for the part, you know?
Lady A. Oh, did you think so? It’s the way they are cutting them this year for girls. But don’t you think they ought to be pulled up?
E. C. The frocks, my dear, or the dressmakers, or the girls?
Lady A. No, no, the editors. I’m in this wretched rag week after week.
Mrs. Thrope (also mother of pretty débutante). So am I. It’s a perfect scandal.