“Ay, ay! as large as life; and missy played the hostess. What a conceited doll it is!”

Soured and listless, Miss Fanshawe was beginning to disclose the causes of her prostrate condition. There had been a retrenchment of incense, a diversion or a total withholding of homage and attention; coquetry had failed of effect, vanity had undergone mortification. She lay fuming in the vapours.

“Is Miss de Bassompierre quite well now?” I asked.

“As well as you or I, no doubt; but she is an affected little thing, and gave herself invalid airs to attract medical notice. And to see the old dowager making her recline on a couch, and ‘my son John’ prohibiting excitement, etcetera⁠—faugh! the scene was quite sickening.”

“It would not have been so if the object of attention had been changed: if you had taken Miss de Bassompierre’s place.”

“Indeed! I hate ‘my son John!’ ”