No bushes grew near it, nor had it any shade. The north-west
loop then was where she would sit, and she settled into it, and
nestling her head in her cushion and putting her feet comfortably on
the parapet, from whence they appeared to the villagers on the piazza
below as two white doves, thought that now indeed she would be safe.
Mrs. Fisher found her there, guided by the smell of her
cigarette. The incautious Scrap had not thought of that. Mrs. Fisher
did not smoke herself, and all the more distinctly could she smell the
smoke of others. The virile smell met her directly she went out into
the garden from the dining-room after lunch in order to have her
coffee. She had bidden Francesca set the coffee in the shade of the
house just outside the glass door, and when Mrs. Wilkins, seeing a
table being carried there, reminded her, very officiously and
tactlessly Mrs. Fisher considered, that Lady Caroline wanted to be
alone, she retorted--and with what propriety--that the garden was for
everybody.
Into it accordingly she went, and was immediately aware that Lady
Caroline was smoking. She said to herself, "These modern young women,"
and proceeded to find her; her stick, now that lunch was over, being no
longer the hindrance to action that it was before her meal had been
securely, as Browning once said--surely it was Browning? Yes, she
remembered how much diverted she had been--roped in.
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