Dance flung open the folding-doors of the big room. "Miss Janet Hope to
see your ladyship," she called out; and next moment the doors closed
behind me, and I was left standing there alone.
"Come nearer--come nearer," said her ladyship's cracked voice, as with a
long, lean hand she beckoned me to approach.
I advanced slowly up the room, stopped and curtsied. Lady Chillington
pointed out a high footstool about three yards from her chair. I
curtsied again, and sat down on it. During the interview that followed
my quick eyes had ample opportunity for taking a mental inventory of
Lady Chillington and her surroundings.
She had exchanged the black dress in which I first saw her for one of
green velvet, trimmed with ermine. This dress was made with short
sleeves and low body, so as to leave exposed her ladyship's arms, long,
lean and skinny, and her scraggy neck. Her nose was hooked and her chin
pointed. Between the two shone a row of large white, even teeth, which
long afterwards I knew to be artificial. Equally artificial was the mass
of short black, frizzly curls that crowned her head, which was
unburdened with cap or covering of any kind. Her eyebrows were dyed to
match her hair. Her cheeks, even through the powder with which they were
thickly smeared, showed two spots of brilliant red, which no one less
ignorant than I would have accepted without question as the last genuine
remains of the bloom of youth.
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