Lady Lavinia cast aside her déshabillé and stood up.
"Oh, 'tis no matter-I am ready for my gown, Louisa."
There came more knocking at the door, and this time it was Carstares who rose to open it.
There entered Markham, heavily handsome in crimson and gold, and Lovelace, his opposite, fair and delicately pretty in palest blue and silver. As usual, he wore his loose wig, and in it sparkled three sapphire pins.
He made my lady a marvellous leg.
"I am prostrated by your beauty, fairest!"
Sir Gregory was eyeing Lavinia's white slippers through his quizzing glass.
"Jewelled heels, pon my soul!" he drawled.
She pirouetted gracefully, her feet flashing as they caught the light.
"Was it not well thought on?" she demanded. "But I must not waste time-the dress! Now, Markham-now Harry-you will see the creation!"
Lovelace sat down on a chair, straddle-wise, his arms over the back, and his chin sunk in his hands. Markham leant against the garderobe and watched through his glass.
When the dress was at last arranged, the suggested improvements in the matter of lace, ribbons, and the adjustment of a brooch thoroughly discussed, bracelets fixed on her arms and the flaming domino draped about her, it was full three-quarters of an hour later, and Carstares was becoming impatient. It was not in his nature to join with the two men in making fulsome compliments, and their presence at the toilette filled him with annoyance. He hated that Lavinia should admit them, but it was the mode, and he knew he must bow the head under it.
My lady was at last ready to start; her gilded chair awaited her in the light of the flambeaux at the door, and with great difficulty she managed to enter it, taking absurd pains that her silks should not crush, nor the nodding plumes of her huge head-dress become disordered by unseemly contact with the roof. Then she found that she had left her fan in her room, and Lovelace and Markham must needs vie with one another in the fetching of it. While they wrangled wittily for the honour, Richard went quietly indoors and presently emerged with the painted chicken-skin, just as Lovelace was preparing to ascend the steps. At last Lavinia was shut in and the bearers picked up the poles. Off went the little cavalcade down the long square, the chair in the middle. Lovelace walked close beside it on the right, and Richard and Markham on the left. So they proceeded through the uneven streets, carefully picking their way through the dirtier parts, passing other chairs and pedestrians, all coming from various quarters into South Audley Street. They were remarkably silent: Markham from habitual laziness, Lovelace because he sensed Richard's antagonism, and Richard himself on account of his extremely worried state of mind. In fact, until they reached Curzon Street no one spoke, and then it was only Markham, who, glancing behind him at the shuttered windows of the great corner house, casually remarked that Chesterfield was still at Wells. An absent assent came from Carstares, and the conversation came to an end.