I know about massage. I massed Ariadne once, according to a system we read of in a book. I’ve seldom had such a chance at her. I pinched her black and blue, and she kept saying, “Go on! Harder! Harder!” but as it didn’t seem to agree with her afterwards, I didn’t do it again. But I took the boa to give Ariadne, I have no use for such things myself.
When Lady Scilly was ready she said—“We won’t lunch in, we will go to Prince’s and have a filet. Scilly’s in a bad temper because of bills. Well, bills must come,—and I may go, I suppose. There’s no reason one shouldn’t keep out of their way.”
She stuck a hat on with twenty feathers in it, and we went down, and she told the butler to call a hansom now, and tell the carriage to fetch us at three o’clock.
The butler said, “Very well, my lady. Your ladyship has a lunch-party of ten!” all in the same voice.
“So I have! Oh, Parker, what a fool I am!” and she flopped into a hall seat.
“Yes, my lady,” Parker said, quite politely, closing the hall-door again. He has known her from a child, so he may be rude.
So we took off our hats, at least I did—she wears a hat every time she can, except in bed—and went into the library where Lord Scilly was, and her cousin, a young man from the Foreign Office, Simon Hermyre, that I know.
Lord Scilly came up to her and said out loud, “You have got too much on!”
She softly dabbed her face with her handkerchief to please him, but so as not to disturb anything, and the young man from the Foreign Office laughed. He is a fifth cousin. Lady Scilly says her cousins grow like blackberries on every bush—one of the penalties of greatness.
“I’ve never really seen your face, Paquerette,” he said, “and I do believe it would justify my wildest expectations. Still, I think you are right not to make it too cheap. Who’s coming? Smart people, or one of your Bohemian crowds?”