that sometimes annoys me."

Lifting between the tips of her fingers the pretty peach-bloom-tinted
note, whose accusing characters betrayed the hand that penned it, she
continued, with an outbreak of intense and overwhelming contempt:

"Listen, if you please, to the turbid libation which some rose-lipped
Paris, some silk-locked Sybarite poured out last night, after leaving
the theatre. Under the pretence of adding a leaf to the chaplets, won
by what he is pleased to tern 'diving dramatic genius,' this 'Jules
Duval'--let me see, I would not libel an honourable name; yes, so it
is signed--this Jules Duval, this brainless, heartless, soulless
Narcissus, with no larger sense of honour than could find ample
waltzing room on the point of a cambric needle, insolently avows his
real sentiments in language that your _valet_ might address to his
favourite _grisette_; and closes like some ardent accepted lover,
with an audacious demand for my photograph, 'to wear for ever over
his fond and loyal heart!' That is fashionable homage to my
genius--it is? I call it an insult to my womanhood! Nay--I am
ashamed to read it! 'Twould stain my cheeks, soil my lips, dishonour
your gentlemanly ears. Mr. Laurance, if ever you should become a
husband, and truly love the woman you make your wife, you will
perhaps comprehend my feelings, when some gay unprincipled gallant
profanes the sanctity of her retirement with such unpardonable, such
unmerited insolence."

She held it up between thumb and forefinger, shaking out the pink
folds till the signature in violet ink flaunted before the violet
eyes of its owner, then, crushing it as if it were a cobweb, she
tossed it toward the window.

Turning her head, she said in an altered and elevated tone:

"Mrs. Waul, may I disturb you for a moment?"

The quiet figure, clad in sober grey, and wearing a muslin cap whose
crimped ruffle enclosed in a snowy frame the benevolent wrinkled
countenance, came forward, knitting in hand, spectacles on her nose,
and for the first time the visitor became aware of her presence.

"Please lower the curtain yonder beside the etagere, the sun shines
hot upon Mr. Laurance's brow. Then touch the bell, and order the
carriage to be ready in twenty minutes."

Humiliated as he had never been before, Mr. Laurance resolved upon
one desperate attempt to regain the position his vanity had rashly
forfeited. Waiting until the Quaker-like _duenna_ had retreated to
her former seat,