Читать книгу At the Sign of the Fox. A Romance онлайн

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“Charming girl, that Miss Lawton,” was Mrs. Parks’s mental comment. “I guess, after all, there is something in having a well-bred-to-the-bone mother. Three hundred people have squeezed my fingers already this afternoon and murmured all sorts of things, while they either gazed over my head or at my gown. She is the first one that looked at me and as if she meant what she said, or would really do me a good turn if she could.” And the Senator’s ambitious wife gazed after Brooke rather wistfully.

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Escaping from the ballroom, where, in spite of all possible care, the hothouse heat and heavy odour of flowers, together with the mild afternoon, made the air stifling, Brooke was guided by instinct toward the picture gallery. In the reception hall back of the stairs, concealed by a rose-covered screen, a Russian orchestra, the latest novelty, was playing; but as the first strains of the concert floated from the music room, the intended effect was lost and became wholly discordant and bewildering.