Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/208

198 "Why, certainly. Didn't it all spring out of that lovely drive and that walk in the Bois that we had, when you took me to see your portrait? Didn't you understand that I wanted you to know that the public would appreciate a column or two about Mr. Waterlow's new picture, and about you as the subject of it, and about your being engaged to a member of the grand monde, and about what was going on in the grand monde, which would naturally attract attention through that? Why, Miss Francie, you talked as if you did."

"Did I talk a great deal?" asked Francie.

"Why, most freely—it was too lovely. Don't you remember when we sat there in the Bois?"

"Oh, rubbish!" Delia ejaculated.

"Yes, and Mme. de Cliché passed."

"And you told me she was scandalised. And we laughed—it struck us as idiotic. I said it was affected and pretentious. Your father tells me she is scandalised now—she and all the rest of them—at their names appearing in the Reverberator. I don't hesitate to declare that that's affected and pretentious too. It ain't genuine—and if it is it doesn't count. They pretend to be shocked because it looks exclusive, but in point of fact they like it first-rate."

"Are you talking about that old piece in the paper? Mercy, wasn't that dead and buried days and days ago?" Delia ejaculated. She