CHAPTER 10, part 5

It was cut squarely and simply about the neck, and hung in straight folds down to just above her ankles. She held in her hands some long shimmering scarf of brilliant red, that floated and undulated as she moved, as if inspired by some life of its own that it drew out of her slim superb vitality. From the cloud of shifting crimson, with the slow billows of  silver moving rhythmically round her body, that beautiful face looked out deliciously smiling and brimming with life.... Lucia had hardly entered when with a final bray the gramophone came to the end of its record, and Olga swept a great curtsey, threw down her scarf, and stepped off the dais. Georgie was sitting on the floor close to it, and jumped up, leading the applause. For a moment, though several heads had been turned at Lucia's entrance, nobody took the slightest notice of her, indeed, the first apparently to recognize her presence was her hostess, who just kissed her hand to her, and then continued talking to Georgie. Then Olga threaded her way through the besprinkled floor, and came up to her.

"How wise you were to miss that very poor performance," she said. "But Mr Georgie insisted that I should make a fool of myself." "Indeed, I am sorry not to have been here for it," said Lucia in her most stately manner. "It seemed to me very far from being a poor performance, very far indeed. _Caro mio_, you remember Miss  Bracely." "Si, si molto bene," said Peppino, shaking hands. "Ah, and you talk Italian," said Olga. "_Che bella lingua!_ I wish I knew it." "You have a very good pronunciation," said Lucia. "Tante grazie. You know everyone here of course. Now, what shall we do next? Clumps or charades or what? Ah, there are some cigarettes. Won't you have one?" Lucia gave a little scream of dismay.

"A cigarette for me? That would be a very odd thing," she said. Then relenting, as she remembered that Olga must be excused for her ignorance, she added: "You see I never smoke. Never."