'
A failure. It was a hard word, but Lesbia felt it was true. She, the
reigning beauty, the cynosure of every eye, had made no conquest worth
talking about, except Mr. Smithson.
'Don't tell your grandmother anything about the bills for a week or
two,' said Lady Kirkbank, soothingly. 'The creatures can wait for their
money. Give yourself time to think.'
'I will,' answered Lesbia, dolefully.
'And now make haste, and get ready for the Ranelagh. My love, your eyes
are dreadfully heavy. You _must_ use a little belladonna. I'll send
Rilboche to you.'
And for the first time in her life, Lesbia, too depressed to argue the
point, consented to have her eyes doctored by Rilboche.
She was gay enough at the Ranelagh, and looked her loveliest at a dinner
party that evening, and went to three parties after the dinner, and went
home in the faint light of early morning, after sitting out a late waltz
in a balcony with Mr. Smithson, a balcony banked round with hot-house
flowers which were beginning to droop a little in the chilly morning
air, just as beauty drooped under the searching eye of day.
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