Time never seemed to Madame Claire to pass slowly, but it had never passed less slowly than now. Stephen de Lisle's letters undoubtedly added a spice of excitement and anticipation to her days. She seldom went out (for she disliked fog, and London seemed just then to have gone to bed with a thick yellow blanket pulled over it) and she only asked those people to come to see her who, she said, touched her at the most points. She hated polite boredoms, and unless her visitors pleased or amused her, she preferred to be left to her own thoughts.
Of late her mind had run much upon her youngest daughter Connie, the beauty of the family—Connie who had "thrown her bonnet over the mill," as the saying was in those days, and run off with Petrovitch, who was at that time first capturing London and Paris with his marvelous playing.
The blow had nearly broken her father, but Madame Claire was made of sterner stuff, and had long observed tendencies in her lovely daughter which promised to lead to this very dénouement. Connie Gregory had one of those entirely beautiful faces which seem so at variance with the tragedies they evoke. She had the prettiest and weakest mouth, and the most irresistible blue eyes
