Meantime Miss Constance talked to Dolores.
'Did you arrive yesterday?'
'No, the day before.'
'Ah! it must be a great change to you.'
'Indeed it is.'
'This must be the dullest place in England, I think,' said Miss
Constance. 'No variety, no advantages of any kind! And have not you
lived in London?'
'Yes.'
'That is my ambition! I once spent six weeks in London, and it was an
absolute revelation--the opening of another world. And I understand
that Mr. Maurice Mohun is such a clever man, and that you saw a great
deal of his friends.'
'I used,' said Dolores, thinking of those days of her mother when she
was the pet and plaything of the guests, incited to say clever and pert
things, which then were passed round and embellished till she neither
knew them nor comprehended them.
'That is what I pine for!' exclaimed Miss Constance. 'Nobody here has
any ideas. You can't conceive how borne and prejudiced every one her
who is used to something better! Don't you love art needlework?'
'Maude Sefton has been working Goosey Goosey Gander on a toilet-cover.'
'Oh! how sweet! We never get any new patterns here! Do come in and
see, I don't know which to take; I brought three beginnings home to
choose from, and I am quite undecided.'
'Mrs. Sefton draws her own patterns,' said Dolores. 'Something she
gets ideas from Lorenzo Dellman--he's an artist, you know, and a
regular aesthete! He made her do a dado all sunflowers last year, but
they are a little gone out now, and are very staring besides, and I
think she will have some nymphs dancing among almond-trees in blue
vases instead, as soon as she has designed it.
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