Anglican in Westminster Abbey:

"Take me with you, Daisy—oh, do—do take me with you!"

"Where?"

[Pg 19]

[Pg 19]

"To Lady Emily Crane's, to Mr. Pettingham's, to Lady Clondart's, Mrs. Vigors', Sir Algernon Smith's, and—oh, Daisy!—to have the honour to meet the—you know, I can't say it. Let me see the panthers, and the Holy Land, and the Prince and Princess."

"They are not in the least good-looking."

"The panthers, Daisy?"

"No; the royalties. Those I mean—they are foreign and plain."

"That doesn't matter. It is so unnecessary for them to take the trouble to be handsome; for us it's quite—quite different."

Mrs. Verulam smiled; but the smile flitted, and the bored expression returned.

"If I did take you, Chloe, you would find it all terribly dull, especially Mr. Pettingham's."

"Doesn't he know good people—not religious, you know, but good?"

"Oh yes—everybody in London; but his parties are dreadful. You sit in the pitch dark while he describes to you how he discovered Venice or Vienna, and shows you the Lido or Lowndes Square, upside down as often as not. His coloured slides are really agonising."

"But his guests?"

"Oh! they're all right, of course, so far as any—any smart people are all right."

Mrs. Van Adam was about to utter a fervent protest, but Mrs. Verulam displayed sudden energy. She sat straight up, planted her little feet firmly on a tiny satin footstool, clasped her soft hands, and said:

"No; hear me, Chloe. You don't understand things. It is my duty to tell you what this London society is. It is a cage, like the cage of my squirrel Tommy, and those[Pg 20] who are in it are captives—yes, yes, wretched captives—for I speak of us, of the women. 

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