He took me to his mother's house one afternoon; but first he had a drink here and a chat there so that we did not reach the West End till after six o'clock.
The room and its occupants made an indelible grotesque impression on me.

It seemed smaller than it was because overcrowded with a score of women and half a dozen men.

It was very dark and there were empty tea-cups and cigarette ends everywhere.

Lady Wilde sat enthroned behind the tea-table looking like a sort of female Buddha swathed in wraps--a large woman with a heavy face and prominent nose; very like Oscar indeed, with the same sallow skin which always looked dirty; her eyes too were her redeeming feature--vivacious and quick-glancing as a girl's.

She "made up" like an actress and naturally preferred shadowed gloom to sunlight.