"It is a very little dinner, you see," continued the hostess, "only
seven, but we shall be seven time' happier."
The seventh person proved to be the Italian, Corni, who had surrendered
his seat in Madame de Vaurigard's victoria to Mellin on the Pincio. He
presently made his appearance followed by a waiter bearing a tray of
glasses filled with a pink liquid, while the Countess led her two wicked
boys across the room to present them to Lady Mount-Rhyswicke. Already
Mellin was forming sentences for his next letter to the Cranston
Telegraph: "Lady Mount-Rhyswicke said to me the other evening,
while discussing the foreign policy of Great Britain, in Comtesse de
Vaurigard's salon..." "An English peeress of pronounced literary acumen
has been giving me rather confidentially her opinion of our American
poets..."
The inspiration of these promising fragments was a large, weary-looking
person, with no lack of powdered shoulder above her pink bodice and a
profusion of "undulated" hair of so decided a blond that it might have
been suspected that the decision had lain with the lady herself.
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