When she turned away from the fire her
attention was caught by an Englishwoman who had thrown herself full
length on the sofa. Her person was a curious mixture of cleanliness and
untidiness, her face was even polished by soap and scrubbing, but her
frock, although probably quite clean, looked anything but fresh, and
lying down among the cushions had not improved her hair, which had been
frowzily frizzed anyway. Nina would have thought Lady Dorothy an
impossible person were it not for the "Lady" which, as Carpazzi put it,
"was pushed before the name."
In the meanwhile Lady Dorothy went off into a long disquisition upon the
advisability of having couches at formal banquets as in the old Roman
days. The illustration which she was at the moment affording was
scarcely, to Nina's mind, encouraging to her proposition. She smoked
rapidly and let the cigarette ashes spill all down the side of her
neck.
"Isn't it funny what a little place the world is?" babbled the late Miss
Titherington, cutting short Lady Dorothy's discourse. "Here we are, you
and I and John--just the same as though we were back in Bar Harbor! What
a lamb of a child you used to be! Only do you remember the day you
nearly drowned me? And he had to rescue us both!"
"Just fancy that!" said the Lady Dorothy from her corner of the sofa.
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