Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/487

 CHAPTER LIV

FRIENDS IN NEED

What a sky! what weather! what a look-out! what an apartment, and what chocolate!" exclaimed Madame de Montmirail to her maid, in an accent of intense Parisian disgust; while the latter prepared her mistress to go abroad and encounter in the streets of London the atmosphere of a really tolerably fine day for England at the time of year. "Quick, Justine! do not distress yourself about costume. My visits this morning are of business rather than ceremony. And what matters it now? Yet, after all, I suppose a woman never likes to look her worst, especially when she is growing old."

Justine made no answer. The ready disclaimer which would indeed have been no flattery died upon her lips; for Justine also felt aggrieved in many ways by this untoward expedition to the English capital. In the first place, having spent but one night in Paris, she had been compelled to leave it at the very period when its attractions were coming into bloom: in the next, she had encountered, while crossing the Channel, such a fresh breeze, as she was pleased to term, "un vent de Polichinelle!" and which upset her digestive process for a week; in the third, though disdaining to occupy a hostile territory with her war material disorganised, she was painfully conscious of looking her worst; while, lastly, she had no opportunity for resetting the blunted edge of her attractions, because in the whole house-*hold below-stairs could be discovered but one of the opposite sex, sixty years old, and obviously given, body and soul, to that mistress who cheers while she inebriates.