‘Was she pretty?’ asked Lesbia, not displeased at this contemptuous summing up of poor Belle Trinder’s story.

’If you admire the Flemish type, as illustrated by Rubens, she was lovely.  A complexion of lilies and roses—­cabbage roses, bien entendu, which were apt to deepen into peonies after champagne and mayonaise at Ascot or Sandown—­a figure—­oh—­well—­a tremendous figure—­hair of an auburn that touched perilously on the confines of red—­large, serviceable feet, and an appetite—­the appetite of a ploughman’s daughter reared upon short commons.’

‘You are very cruel to a girl who evidently admired you.’

’A fig for her admiration!  She wanted to live in my house and spend my money.’

‘There goes the gong,’ exclaimed Lesbia; ’pray let us go to breakfast.  You are hideously cynical, and I am wofully tired of you.’

And as they strolled back to the house, by lavender walk and rose garden, and across the dewy lawn, Lesbia questioned herself as to whether she was one whit better or more dignified than Isabella Trinder.  She wore her rue with a difference, that was all.

CHAPTER XXXV.

‘ALL FANCY, PRIDE, AND FICKLE MAIDENHOOD.’

The return to Arlington Street meant a return to the ceaseless whirl of gaiety.  Even at Rood Hall life had been as near an approach to perpetual motion as one could hope for in this world; but the excitement and the hurrying and scampering in Berkshire had a rustic flavour; there were moments that were almost repose, a breathing space between the blue river and the blue sky, in a world that seemed made of green fields and hanging woods, the plashing of waters, and the song of the lark.  But in London the very atmosphere was charged with hurry and agitation; the freshness was gone from the verdure of the parks; the glory of the rhododendrons had faded; the Green Park below Lady Kirkbank’s mansion was baked and rusty; the towers of the Houses of Parliament yonder were dimly seen in a mist of heat.  London air tasted of smoke and dust, vibrated with the incessant roll of carriages, and the trampling of multitudinous feet.

There are women of rank who can take the London season quietly, and live their own lives in the midst of the whirl and the riot—­women for whom that squirrel-like circulation round and round the fashionable wheel has no charm—­women who only receive people they like, only go into society that is congenial.  But Lady Kirkbank was not one of these.  The advance of age made her only more keen in the pursuit of pleasure.  She would have abandoned herself to despair had the glass over the mantelpiece in her boudoir ceased to be choked and littered with cards—­had her book of engagements shown a blank page.  Happily there were plenty of people—­if not all of them the best people—­who wanted Sir George and Lady Kirkbank at their parties.  The gentleman was sporting and harmless, the lady was good-natured, and just sufficiently eccentric to be amusing without degenerating into a bore.  And this year she was asked almost everywhere, for the sake of the beauty who went under her wing.  Lesbia had been as a pearl of price to her chaperon, from a social point of view; and now that she was engaged to Horace Smithson she was likely to be even more valuable.