When luncheon was over, she gave a short lecture on "the Science of
Palmistry" and "the Cultivation of Clairvoyant Powers." Then there was
tea; and the Countess allowed herself to be consulted by the guests--the
dozen most important women of Connie's acquaintance.
Annesley, though she was not able to like the Countess, was pleased with
the praise lavished upon her both for her looks and her accomplishments
that afternoon. She had guessed, from the beautiful woman's constrained
manner when they met at a shop the day after the dinner-dance, that she
was hurt because she had not been invited: though why she should expect
to be asked to every entertainment which the Nelson Smiths gave, Annesley
could not see.
Vaguely distressed, however, by the flash in the handsome eyes, and the
curt "How do you do?" the girl appealed to Knight.
"Ought we to have had the Countess de Santiago last evening?" she asked,
perching on his knee in the room at the back of the house which he had
annexed as a "den."
"Certainly not," he reassured her, promptly. "All the people were howling
swells. The Annesley-Setons had skimmed the topmost layer of the cream
for our benefit, and the Countess would have been 'out' of it in such a
set, unless she'd been telling fortunes.
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