Madame Mila, with some sharpness. "I like to think I am popular; to see a mob look after me; to have the shop-boys rush out to get a glimpse of me; to hear the crowd on a race-day call out 'ain't she a rare 'un! my eye, ain't she fit!' just as if I were one of the mares. I often give a crossing-sweeper a shilling in London, just to make him 'bless my pretty eyes.' Why, even when I go to that beastly place of Spiridion's in Russia, I make the hideous serfs in love with me; it puts one on good terms with oneself. I often think when the people in the streets don't turn after me as I go—then I shall know that I'm old!"
Lady Hilda's eyebrows expressed unutterable contempt; these were sentiments to her entirely incomprehensible.
"How very agreeable—to make the streets the barometer of one's looks—'fair or foul.' So you live in apprehension of a railway porter's indifference, and only approve of yourself if a racing tout smiles! My dear Mila, I never did believe you would have gone lower in the scale of human adorers than your Gommeux and Poisseux."
