“Do you think her handsome, the Countess Lomshen?” asked the princess.

Reginald thought the Countess’s complexion suggested an exclusive diet of macaroons and pale sherry. He said so.

“But that cannot be possible,” said the princess triumphantly; “I’ve seen her eating fish-soup at Donon’s.”

The princess always defended a friend’s complexion if it was really bad. With her, as with a great many of her sex, charity began at homeliness and did not generally progress much farther.

Reginald withdrew his macaroon and sherry theory, and became interested in a case of miniatures.