“She had quite a reputation herself when she was young,” her father said, “and she was, I must say, when I first knew her, much better looking than she is now. She always had a sharp tongue, but she made it amusing and kept people laughing.”
“I did not want to laugh last night at what she was saying to me,” Lavinia replied. “In fact I thought it was very bad form and Mama would have surely disapproved of her.”
“It was stupid of me to stay there,” Prince Serge said, “but unfortunately any other Palace would have been out of our way and it would have been considered more or less an insult if we had stayed in a hotel even if there had been one which would have been comfortable and large enough to have accommodated our entourage.”
Lavinia grinned.
“I did not appreciate how large we were,
