She Came Out Alive, But Her
Safety Was Purchased At The Cost Of A George IV.
Cream-jug, an
Elizabethan sugar-bowl, and a Boadicea tea-caddy, which were, I
doubt not, manufactured in Wardour Street towards the close of the
nineteenth century.
Salemina came in just then, cold and tired. (Tower and National
Gallery the same day. It's so much more work to go to the Tower
nowadays than it used to be!) We had intended to take a sail to
Richmond on a penny steamboat, but it was drizzling, so we had a
cosy fire instead, slipped into our tea-gowns, and ordered tea and
thin bread-and-butter, a basket of strawberries with their frills
on, and a jug of Devonshire cream. Willie Beresford asked if he
might stay; otherwise, he said, he should have to sit at a cold
marble table on the corner of Bond Street and Piccadilly, and take
his tea in bachelor solitude.
"Yes," I said severely, "we will allow you to stay; though, as you
are coming to dinner, I should think you would have to go away some
time, if only in order that you might get ready to come back.
You've been here since breakfast-time."
"I know," he answered calmly, "and my only error in judgment was
that I didn't take an earlier breakfast, in order to begin my day
here sooner. One has to snatch a moment when he can, nowadays; for
these rooms are so infested with British swells that a base-born
American stands very little chance!"
Now I should like to know if Willie Beresford is in love with
Francesca.
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