“It is every woman’s duty to set an example of beautiful dressing without extravagance!” and he looked at Lady Scilly’s pretty pink fluffiness. Paris, of course. I hate Paris, where we never go.
“Oh, this,” she said very contemptuously, looking down at it as if it was dirt, as all well-dressed women do. “This! This cost nothing at all! I have a clever maid, you know?”
“If all the women had clever maids that say they have,” Christina whispered to me. “What would become of Camille, I wonder?”
George continued, inventing a hobby as he went on, “You must never quit an old dress merely because it has become unfashionable.”
“My dresses quit me,” said Ariadne, dipping her elbow in the ink-pot, so that the hole in it didn’t show. “I’m jealous of the sofa! It’s better covered than me.”
I believe Lady Scilly noticed her do this, and though she is lazy, she is kind, and she asked Ariadne when she intended to wear “this creation.”
“At Lady Islington’s,” Ariadne answered rather sulkily.
“Oh yes, I know. A Cinderella. It is far too good for that sort of romp, my dear child. I have a little thing at home I could lend you just to dance in—it is too débutantish for me, and I do wish some one would wear it for me. If I send it round, will you try it on? And if it will do, keep it, and wear it for my sake. When is the dance?”
“The day after to-morrow!” I answered for Ariadne, who was overcome with gratitude, for she knew what Lady Scilly’s little dresses were like. Camille’s “little” would beat Ariadne’s biggest.
“Then you shall have it to-morrow, and if you can wear it, do; I shall be so much obliged.”