I viewed her from top to toe. She turned airily round that I might survey her on all sides. Conscious of her charms, she was in her best humour: her rather small blue eyes sparkled gleefully. She was going to bestow on me a kiss, in her school-girl fashion of showing her delights but I said, "Steady! Let us be Steady, and know what we are about, and find out the meaning of our magnificence"--and so put her off at arm's length, to undergo cooler inspection.
"Shall I do?" was her question.
"Do?" said I. "There are different ways of doing; and, by my word, I don't understand yours."
"But how do I look?"
"You look well dressed."
She thought the praise not warm enough, and proceeded to direct attention to the various decorative points of her attire. "Look at this parure," said she. "The brooch, the ear-rings, the bracelets: no one in the school has such a set--not Madame herself"
"I see them all." (Pause.) "Did M. de Bassompierre give you those jewels?"
"My uncle knows nothing about them."
"Were they presents from Mrs. Cholmondeley?"
"Not they, indeed. Mrs. Cholmondeley is a mean, stingy creature; she never gives me anything now."
I did not choose to ask any further questions, but turned abruptly away.
"Now, old Crusty--old Diogenes" (these were her familiar terms for me when we disagreed), "what is the matter now?"
"Take yourself away. I have no pleasure in looking at you or your parure."
For an instant, she seemed taken by surprise.
"What now, Mother Wisdom? I have not got into debt for it--that is, not for the jewels, nor the gloves, nor the bouquet. My dress is certainly not paid for, but uncle de Bassompierre will pay it in the bill: he never notices items, but just looks at the total; and he is so rich, one need not care about a few guineas more or less."
"Will you go? I want to shut the door.... Ginevra, people may tell you you are very handsome in that ball-attire; but, in my eyes, you will never look so pretty as you did in the gingham gown and plain straw bonnet you wore when I first saw you."
"Other people have not your puritanical tastes," was her angry reply. "And, besides, I see no right you have to sermonize me."
"Certainly! I have little right; and you, perhaps, have still less to come flourishing and fluttering into my chamber--a mere jay in borrowed plumes. I have not the least respect for your feathers, Miss Fanshawe; and especially the peacock's eyes you call a parure: very pretty things, if you had bought them with money which was your own, and which you could well spare, but not at all pretty under present circumstances."