I have dressed myself like a suburban housekeeper to meet a Poiret, so don't deny it, and having humourously told Michael I wished to see a prima donna and a pianist, he takes me at my word and produces THE Miss Falbe.

I'm glad I knew that in time; I should infallibly have asked you to sing, and if you had done so--you are probably good-natured enough to have done even that--I should have given the drawing-room gasp at the end, and told your brother that I thought you sang very prettily." Sylvia laughed.
"But really it wasn't my fault, Lady Barbara," she said.

"When we met I couldn't have said, 'Beware! I am THE Miss Falbe.'" "No, my dear; but I think you ought, somehow, to have conveyed the impression that you were a tremendous swell.

You didn't.

I have been thinking of you as a charming girl, and nothing more." "But that's quite good enough for me," said Sylvia.
The two young men joined them after this, and Hermann speedily became engrossed in reading the finished Variations.