"
Mercy started. Lady Janet had called her "Grace." Lady Janet was
still deliberately assuming to be innocent of the faintest
suspicion of the truth.
" No," resumed her ladyship, affecting to misunderstand Mercy's
movement, "you are not to go up now and dress. There is no time,
and I am quite ready to excuse you. You are a foil to me, my
dear. You have reached the perfection of shabbiness. Ah! I
remember when I had my whims and fancies too, and when I looked
well in anything I wore, just as you do. No more of that. As I
was saying, I have been thinking and planning what we are to do.
We really can't stay here. Cold one day, and hot the next--what a
climate! As for society, what do we lose if we go away? There is
no such thing as society now. Assemblies of well-dressed mobs
meet at each other's houses, tear each other's clothes, tread on
each other's toes. If you are particularly lucky, you sit on the
staircase, you get a tepid ice, and you hear vapid talk in slang
phrases all round you. There is modern society. If we had a good
opera, it would be something to stay in London for. Look at the
programme for the season on that table--promising as much as
possible on paper, and performing as little as possible on the
stage.
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