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In five minutes, running as hard as we could, we were wet through; and Fanny, in crossing the street and plucking at the guide's bundle for a cloak for me, was nearly run over, but stood it; and, all dripping, we reached our inn, Le Cheval Blanc. An hour spent in throwing off wet clothes and putting on dry tea, coffee bed bugs, and sleep, nevertheless.
Moved by a sudden impulse I turned from the lattice to the elegant luxuriousness of my bedchamber, its soft carpets, rich hangings and exquisite harmonies of colour; and coming before the cheval mirror I stood to view and examine myself as I had never done hitherto, surveying my reflection not with the accustomed eyes of Peregrine Vereker, but rather with the coldly appraising eyes of a stranger, and beheld this: A youthful, slender person of no great stature, clothed in garments elegantly unostentatious.
She also had just completed her toilet, and now she stood before the large cheval mirror, surveying the reflection of her figure from its clear surface, where it looked like a framed picture. Ah! far the most beautiful, far the most terrible figure in the pageantry of the evening would be that of Sybil Berners!
They were all very civil, only I was astonished at the way the mistress of the house mentioned my name every time she spoke to me: "Madame Waddington, etes-vous allee a l'Opera hier soir," "Madame Waddington, vous montez a cheval tous les matins, je crois," "Monsieur Waddington va tous les vendredis a l'Institut, il me semble," etc.
Then the town was dark and silent again. He strolled across the square towards the Cheval Blanc, the large cafe where the officers went. "Button yer coat," came a gruff voice. He saw a stiff tall figure at the edge of the curve. He made out the shape of the pistol holster that hung like a thin ham at the man's thigh. An M. P. He buttoned his coat hurriedly and walked off with rapid steps.
"This is a cheval de frise, which I intend to set up in front of our cave in case we are compelled to defend ourselves against an attack by savages. With this barring the way they cannot rush the position." She sighed. Rainbow Island was a wild spot after all. Did not thorns and briers grow very close to the gates of Eden?
She put on a maximum, Lady Dauntrey hastily placing a five-franc piece, not on the cheval, but more timidly on the six numbers of which ten and eleven were two. Mary lost and Eve won, for thirteen came up. The same thing happened several times in succession. If Mary chose a number, Lady Dauntrey included it in a transversale simple, or took the dozen in which it was.
"I hope that many may continue to skip it," said Walter, "tourists and trippers would ruin this lovely old place and turn this comfortable, homelike Cheval Blanc into a great noisy caravansary.
This solid stuff, and no mere daydreams, was the delight absorbing her and the ecstasy to which she was abandoned when that great day came. In the morning she put the last of her possessions, the equipment of her dressing table, into the new apartment; after the day spent at Simcox's, she returned to dress for the first time before the noble cheval glass purchased for the bedroom.
"And, Betty, if you'll hand me my jewel box I'll ask you to return that er you remember my old ruby pendant!" "Was that did he give it to you?" "Yes. You don't know how I hate to give it up. Isn't it beautiful?" She reluctantly let the ruby slip from her fingers into those of her friend. "Perfectly gorgeous," said Betty, fastening it about her neck and surveying herself in the cheval glass.
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