'I wonder if I might ask you to do something for me,' said Mrs Burton. 'It is just to leave a note at the Gatehouse. You know the Gatehouse? Mrs Drummond's, just opposite the Rectory.'
'Certainly. I know Mrs Drummond,' said Rivers. He answered very promptly, feeling that there was a covert attack intended, and that this was meant to remind him of the allegiance he owed elsewhere. His reply had thus quite an unnecessary degree of promptitude and explanatoriness. 'I have known her for many years. In fact, I called there yesterday.' He felt it was expedient for his own independence to assert his freedom of action at once.
'Then you won't mind leaving my note,' said Mrs Burton. 'We are getting up a picnic for Wednesday, you know; and I should like Norah to be with us. She has rather a dull life at home, poor child.'
'That is the pretty girl you were dancing with, Mr Rivers,' said Lady Florizel, 'with dark hair and hundreds of little flounces. I should have said she was too little for so many flounces, if she had consulted me.'
'That is the mistake girls always make,' said the Marchioness, 'especially girls who are not in society. They follow the fashion without ever thinking whether it suits them or not.'
'But, under correction, I think it did suit her,' said Mr Rivers. 'Do not let us call them flounces--call them clouds, or lines of soft white mist. I am not sufficiently learned in _chiffons_ to speak.'
'Oh, but you are delightful on _chiffons_!' said Lady Florizel. 'Men always are when they know just a little. Sometimes, you know, one can actually derive an idea from you; and then you make the most delicious mistakes. Clara, let us make him talk _chiffons_; it is the greatest fun in the world.'
'I have more confidence in my maid,' said Clara. She was not in the habit of controlling herself or hiding her emotions. She contracted her white forehead, which was not very high by nature, with a force which brought the frizzy golden fringe of hair over her very eyebrows--and pouted with her red lips. 'Besides, Mr Rivers has something better to do,' she said, getting up from the table.
She was the first to get up--a thing which filled the Marchioness with consternation. Clara was a girl of the nineteenth century, feeling that her youth, and her bloom, and riotous, luxurious beauty made her queen of the more gently toned, gently mannered company. She broke up the party with that pout and frown.