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Updated: May 9, 2025
We now neared a small dock from which two ladies brandished handkerchiefs at us, and were presently welcomed by them. I had no difficulty in identifying the Mrs. Charles Belknap-Jackson, a lively featured brunette of neutral tints, rather stubby as to figure, but modishly done out in white flannels. She surveyed us interestedly through a lorgnon, observing which Mrs. Effie was quick with her own.
"And, Mr. Bines, do come in with that quaint old grandfather of yours and lunch with us," urged Mrs. Milbrey, who had, as it were, spiked her lorgnon. "Here's Mr. Shepler to second the invitation and then we shall chat about this very interesting West." Miss Milbrey nodded encouragement, seeming to chuckle inwardly.
Mrs Clayton Vernon had a lorgnon at the end of a shaft of tortoise-shell; otherwise, a pair of eye-glasses on a stick. She had the habit of the lorgnon; the lorgnon seldom left her, and whenever she was in any doubt or difficulty she would raise the lorgnon to her eyes and stare patronizingly. It was a gesture tremendously effective.
Now she said, as if it was an after-thought: 'By the way, I did not pay those items you put down as "debts of honour"; you remember you gave the actual names and addresses. 'Why not? the question came from him involuntarily. The persecuting lorgnon rose again: 'Because they were all bogus! Addresses, names, debts, honour! Good afternoon!
Mrs Fanshawe waved her lorgnon, and murmured some vague words which might, or might not, have been intended as an apology. "Oh, yes. So nice! Naturally, that morning I was worn-out. I did not know what I was doing. I crawled into bed. Erskine told me about meeting you, and of your pretty performance. Quite a professional siffleuse! More amusing than school teaching, I should say.
The steward did not seem unduly alarmed at the little old lady's angry speech, but hastened to bring her the daintily printed bill of fare. Raising her jewelled lorgnon, the French lady scanned the MENU, and having made a choice of soup, she laid the card down, and turning toward Patty surveyed her leisurely through her glasses.
She transfixed the slight, tired-eyed young woman with a look that would have chilled any one else to the bone—the high-bred look that never fails to put the lowly in their places. "Indeed," she said, with infinite irony in her voice. "This is Miss Carnahan, I believe?" She lifted her lorgnon as a further aid to inspection.
"Pardon, sir," interrupted Montfanon, whose brows contracted still more at the mention of the celebrated field-marshal, and, stopping by a gesture the reader, who, in his surprise, dropped his lorgnon upon the table on which his elbow rested.
Ames clasped her stiff hands together and dropped the lorgnon on the floor. "By George!" she cried. "You're a man after my own heart. Look at me! I'm a withered, haggard old woman, fierce as a cat and ugly as sin. Why? Because all my life I've been baffled. I was born as wild a bird, my dear, as yourself; but I never knew how to get out of the cage and I was always getting into new ones.
She was just a grey-haired woman, attired in handsome black, in no way differentiated from one or two other visitors of the same age: even when the lorgnon dropped to her side, disclosing a pair of very bright, very quizzical grey eyes, it was a full moment before Claire realised that this was her acquaintance of that first eventful journey to London, none other than Mrs Fanshawe herself.
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