Madame Claire read extracts from this letter to Judy, who was immensely pleased at the impression she must have made.
"Though what he saw in me, I can't think," she said. "My chief points, judging from photographs, were shoe-button eyes, a fringe, and a prominent stomach. But there's no accounting for these infatuations."
"I do wish he would come to London," said Madame Claire as she folded the letter. "After all, London is the best place for old people. They get more consideration here than anywhere else in the world."
The Kensington Park Hotel certainly harbored its share. On those rare occasions when Madame Claire took a meal in the dining-room she was always struck by the number of white, gray, or shining pink heads to be seen. And the faces that went with them were usually placid and content. In the lounge at tea-time they fought the war over again, they made or unmade political reputations, they discussed the food, the latest play, and most of all they discussed—the women at least—Royalty and the nobility. Not even in the drawing-rooms of the very great were exalted names so freely and intimately spoken of. One old dame with an ear trumpet, who later comes into the
