Lady Branwin, inwardly furious but outwardly submissive, dropped panting on to the soft divan of the particular alcove wherein this agreeable conversation was taking place. She somewhat resembled the autocrat of Mayfair, being stout and black-eyed, and short in stature. Her face had once been pretty and piquant, but being small and delicate was now sketched, as it were, on superabundant adipose. Her hair was really white with age, but from the use of many dyes had become parti-coloured, and her complexion was sinfully muddy. The sole beauty she possessed were two magnificent Spanish eyes, as large as of Madame Coralie, but scarcely so hard in expression. She was richly arrayed in a dove-coloured silk dress and a loose mantle of brown velvet trimmed with moonlight beads, together with a "Merry Widow" hat, appallingly un-becoming to her tiny features. Also she glittered with many brooches, bracelets, chains, and jewelled buttons, and even dangled a pair of lengthy earrings, after the barbaric fashion of the Albert period. Indeed, Lady Branwin did not look unlike a barbarian, say, an Esquimau, or an Indian squaw, with her yellow face, her squat figure, and her multiplicity of jewellery, although in this last respect she more resembled an Oriental. She breathed hard, and the tears came into her eyes as Madame Coralie continued her very personal remarks. "A sack," said the restorer of youth, "mere sack--a ruin of what you were sixty years ago." This was too much, and the worm turned. "I am only fifty--you know I am." "You look like a hundred, and nothing I can do for you will make you look less," was the relentless answer. "You eat and drink and sleep too much, and never take exercise, and your eyes show that you take morphia." "I don't--it's not true. How dare you say so--how cruel to--" "Don't waste your breath on me, my dear," advised Madame, coolly. "I am only a shop-keeper, who is honest enough to tell the truth. It's against my own interest, I admit; but why should I give expensive treatment to a woman who can do me no credit?" "I can pay for the treatment--there is no reason why I shouldn't have it." "Oh! you can pay, can you? How can I be sure of that?" sneered the other. "There is no question of being sure," replied Lady Branwin, with dignity, "for my husband, Sir Joseph, is wealthy, as you know. You have only to name your price to have it." This made an impression on Madame Coralie, who was nothing if not greedy. "My price has gone up since you called last." "I don't care what the price is." "Your husband may," snapped Madame Coralie, venomously. "However, that is his affair. I should like to know what you expect me to do?" and she ran her eyes superciliously over her stout customer. "I want my complexion attended to, and my size reduced, and my--"