A rope of pearls hung from her neck--her only ornament.
"It is permitted, Countess, to express one's appreciation of your toilette ?" he ventured.
"In England it is not usual," she reminded him, with a smile, "but as you are such an old friend of the family, we will call it permissible.
It is, as a matter of fact, the last gown I had from Paris.

Nowadays, one thinks of other things." "You are one of the few women," he observed, "who mix in the great affairs and yet remain intensely feminine." "Just now," she sighed, "the great affairs do not please me." "Yet they are interesting," he replied.

"The atmosphere at the present moment is electric, charged with all manner of strange possibilities.
But we talk too seriously.

Will you not let me know the names of some of your guests?
With General Crossley I am already acquainted." "They really don't count for very much," she said, a little carelessly.
"This is entirely aunt's Friday night gathering, and they are all her friends.

That is Lady Maltenby opposite you, and her husband on the other side of my aunt." "Maltenby," he repeated.