Smithson it would not matter how much
money you owed people,' said Lady Kirkbank. 'You had better come down to
lunch. A glass of Heidseck will bring you up to concert pitch.'
Champagne was Lady Kirkbank's idea of a universal panacea; and she had
gradually succeeded in teaching Lesbia to believe in the sovereign power
of Heidseck as a restorative for shattered nerves. At Fellside Lesbia
had drunk only water; but then at Fellside she had never known that
feeling of exhaustion and prostration which follows days and nights
spent in society, the wear and tear of a mind forever on the alert, and
brilliant spirits which are more often forced than real. For her chief
stimulant Lesbia had recourse to the teapot; but there were occasions
when she found that something more than tea was needed to maintain that
indispensable vivacity of manner which Lady Kirkbank called concert
pitch.
To-day she allowed herself to be persuaded. She went down to luncheon,
and took a couple of glasses of dry champagne with her cutlet, and, thus
restored, was equal to putting on the new bonnet, which was so becoming
that her spirits revived as she contemplated the effect in her glass.
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