Before all Riseholme!
So in he went. Had Lucia known that, it would quite have wiped the gilt
off Lady Ambermere's being refused admittance. In point of fact it did
wipe the gilt off when, about an hour afterwards, Georgie went to lunch
because he told her. And if there had been any gilt left about
anywhere, that would have vanished, too, when in answer to some rather
damaging remark she made about poor Daisy's interests in the
love-affairs of other people's servants, she learned that it was of
the love-affairs of their superiors that all Riseholme had been talking
for at least an hour by now.
Again there was ill-luck about the tableaux on Saturday, for in the
Brunnhilde scene, Peppino in his agitation, turned the lamp that was to
be a sunrise, completely out, and Brunnhilde had to hail the midnight,
or at any rate a very obscure twilight. Georgie, it is true, with
wonderful presence of mind, turned on an electric light when he had
finished playing, but it was more like a flash of lightning than a
slow, wonderful dawn. The tableaux were over well before 10.45, and
though Lucia in answer to the usual pressings, said she would "see
about" doing them again, she felt that Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher,
who made their first public appearance as the happy pair, attracted
more than their proper share of attention. The only consolation was that
the romps that followed at poor Daisy's were a complete fiasco.
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