This done,
the lady returned to her own room, from which she emerged an hour
later in a soft gray silk relieved by a film of old lace at her
throat, blending into the tones of her gray hair brushed straight
up from her forehead and worn high over a cushion, the whole
topped by a tiny jewel which caught the light like a drop of dew.
And a veritable grand dame she looked, and was, as she took her
seat and awaited the arrival of her guests--in bearing, in the way
she moved her head; in the way she opened her fan--in the
selection of the fan itself, for that matter. You felt it in the
color and length of her gloves; the size of her pearl ear rings
(not too large, and yet not too small), in the choice of the few
rings that encircled her slender and now somewhat shrunken fingers
(one hoop of gold had a history that the old French Ambassador
could have told if he wanted to, so Peter once hinted to me)--
everything she did in fact betrayed a wide acquaintance with the
great world and its requirements and exactions.
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