Lesbia’s Chaumount costume was a success.  The women praised it, the men stared and admired.  The dark-blue silken jersey, sparkling with closely studded indigo beads, fitted the slim graceful figure as a serpent’s scales fit the serpent.  The coquettish little blue silk toque, the careless cluster of gold-coloured poppies, against the glossy brown hair, the large sunshade of old gold satin lined with indigo, the flounced petticoat of softest Indian silk, the dainty little tan-coloured boots with high heels and pointed toes, were all perfect after their fashion; and Mr. Smithson felt that the liege lady of his life, the woman he meant to marry willy nilly, would be the belle of the race-course.  Nor was he disappointed.  Everybody in London had heard of Lady Lesbia Haselden.  Her photograph was in all the West-End windows, was enshrined in the albums of South Kensington and Clapham, Maida Vale and Haverstock Hill.  People whose circles were far remote from Lady Lesbia’s circle, were as familiar with her beauty as if they had known her from her cradle.  And all these outsiders wanted to see her in the flesh, just as they always thirst to behold Royal personages.  So when it became known that the beautiful Lady Lesbia Haselden was on board Mr. Smithson’s launch, all the people in the small boats, or on neighbouring barges, made it their business if have a good look at her.  The launch was almost mobbed by those inquisitive little boats in the intervals between the races.

‘What are the people all staring and hustling one another for?’ asked Lesbia, innocently.  She had seen the same hustling and whispering and staring in the hall at the opera, when she was waiting for her carriage; but she chose to affect unconsciousness.  ‘What do they all want?’

‘I think they want to see you,’ said Mr. Smithson, who was sitting by her side.  ‘A very natural desire.’

Lesbia laughed, and lowered the big yellow sunshade, so as to hide herself altogether from the starers.

‘How silly!’ she exclaimed.  ’It is all the fault of those horrid photographers:  they vulgarise everything and everybody.  I will never be photographed again.’

’Oh yes, you will, and in that frock.  It’s the prettiest thing I’ve seen for a long time.  Why do you hide yourself from those poor wretches, who keep rowing backwards and forwards in an obviously aimless way, just to get a peep at you en passant?  What happiness for us who live near you, and can gaze when we will, without all those absurd manoeuvres.  There goes the signal—­and now for a hard-fought race.’

Lesbia pretended to be interested in the racing—­she pretended to be gay, but her heart was as heavy as lead.  The burden of debt, which had been growing ever since Seraphine sent in her bill, was weighing her down to the dust.

She owed three thousand pounds.  It seemed incredible that she should owe so much, that a girl’s frivolous fancies and extravagances could amount to such a sum within so short a span.  But thoughtless purchases, ignorant orders, had run on from week to week, and the main result was an indebtedness of close upon three thousand pounds.