"Uncle Paul!" Leta was looking her sweetest when she tripped into my room
next morning. "I've news for you. She," pointing a delicate forefinger in
the direction of the corridor, "is going! Her Bokums have reached Paris at
last, and sent for her to join them at the Grand Hotel."
I was thunderstruck. The longed-for deliverance had but come to remove
hopelessly and forever out of my reach Lady Carwitchet and the great
Valdez sapphire.
"Why, aren't you overjoyed? I am. We are going to celebrate the event by a
dinner party. Tom's hospitable soul is vexed by the lack of entertainment
we had provided her. We must ask the Brownleys some day or other, and they
will be delighted to meet anything in the way of a ladyship, or such smart
folks as the Duberly-Parkers. Then we may as well have the Blomfields, and
air that awful modern Sevres dessert service she gave us when we were
married." I had no objection to make, and she went on, rubbing her soft
cheek against my shoulder like the purring little cat she was: "Now I want
you to do something to please me--and Mrs. Blomfield. She has set her
heart on seeing your rubies, and though I know you hate her about as much
as you do that Sevres china--"
"What! Wear my rubies with that! I won't. I'll tell you what I will do,
though. I've got some carbuncles as big as prize gooseberries, a whole
set.
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