“Leave that to Hortense. The Italian has a veneer of softness; she is not like a Nell Gwyn. It is a question of subtleties. Nell would swear the girl into a fit in three minutes. The Mancini has a trick of seeming a saint—when necessary. If the Italian makes no romp out of her, then I will dub her nothing but a petticoated Hamlet.”
My lady stretched her arms with a gesture of impatient ennui.
“Well we can try. Let us forget the ghost to-night. I feel I must laugh, or I shall have wrinkles round my mouth.”
“Nell shall do that for you. You will come in my coach?”
“And the proprieties?”
He laughed with the true sardonic gayety of the Restoration.
“Sister Kate shall see to them. Though she is stone deaf she likes to see the dresses and the candles. There is one mistake that Mr. Milton made in that he did not tell us that the devil is deaf in one ear.”
III
Had Lady Purcell, herself unseen, followed her daughter to her room, she would have been astonished by the sudden transformation that swept over her so soon as the door closed. The apathetic figure straightened into keen aliveness; the look of vacuity vanished from the face. It was like a sudden transition from damp, listless November to the starlit brilliance of a frosty night.
“Dust and ashes at two-and-twenty!”