XIThe End of the Season.
“Adieu, bal, plaisir, amour! On disait: Pauvre Constance!
Et on dansait jusqu’au Jour chez l’ambassadeur de France.”
Delavigne.
On a certain evening near the close of those busy, rushing summer months which Londoners call “the season,” Lady Breton was sitting alone in the long, luxurious dressing-room which opened off her satin-hung boudoir. She wore one of those mysterious combinations of lace & ribands & soft folds called a wrapper, & as she leaned back rather wearily in her deep-arm-chair, her slippered feet were stretched out to meet the glow of the small wood-fire crackling on the hearth. There was no other light in the room, but the fire-flash, unless a certain dull twilight gleam through the dark folds of the curtains, deserves such a name; for my lady h
