Here Tommy, who had for some minutes been vainly endeavoring to attract her attention, raised his weak voice to a feeble shout.
"I say, Miss Vere! I've been trying to tell you, but you won't listen! There's a lady waiting to see you!"
"A what?" she asked.
"A lady!" continued Tommy, in loud tones. "A lady of title! Wants to see you in private! Won't detain you long!"
Violet Vere raised her pewter mug once more, and drained off its contents.
"Lord, ain't I honored!" she said, smacking her lips with a grin. "A lady of title to see me! Let her wait! Now then!" and snapping her fingers, she began her dance, and went through it to the end, with her usual vigor and frankness. When she had finished, she turned to the red-faced man who had watched her evolutions with much delight in spite of the abuse she had heaped upon him, and said with an affected, smirking drawl-"Show the lady of title into my dressing-room! I shall be ready for her in ten minutes. Be sure to mention that I am very shy,--and unaccustomed to company!"
And, giggling gently like an awkward school-girl, she held down her head with feigned bashfulness, and stepped mincingly across the stage with such a ludicrous air of prim propriety, that all her associates burst out laughing, and applauded her vociferously. She turned and curtsied to them demurely--then suddenly raising one leg in a horizontal position, she twirled it rapidly in their faces,--then she gave a little shocked cough behind her hand, grinned, and vanished.
When, in the stipulated ten minutes, she was ready to receive her unknown visitor, she was quite transformed. She had arrayed herself in a trailing gown of rich black velvet, fastened at the side with jet clasps--a cluster of natural, innocent, white violets nestled in the fall of Spanish lace at her throat--her face was pale with pearl-powder,--and she had eaten a couple of scented bon-bons to drown the smell of her recent brandy-tipple. She reclined gracefully in an easy chair, pretending to read, and she rose with an admirably acted air of startled surprise, as one of the errand boys belonging to the Brilliant tapped at her door, and in answer to her "Come in!" announced, "Lady Winsleigh!"
A faint, sweet, questioning smile played on the Vere's wide mouth.
"I am not aware that I have the honor of--" she began, modulating her voice to the requirements of fashionable society, and wondering within herself "what the d----l" this woman in the silk and sable-fur costume wanted.