Explore "A Comedy of Masks" by Ernest Dowson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
One afternoon, three months later, Rainham, finding himself in the neighbourhood of Parton Street, took the occasion of knocking at Lady Garnett's door, and found, somewhat to his surprise, that the two ladies were returned. Introduced into their presence -- they were sitting in the library, in close proximity to a considerable fire -- he learnt that their summer wanderings that year had been of no extensive nature, and that they had come into residence a week ago.
They had spent a month in a country house in Berkshire, the old lady told him presently, adding, with an explanatory grimace, that it was a house which belonged to a relation -- the sort of place where one had to visit now and again; where a month went a very long way; where one had to draw largely on one's courtesy -- on one's hypocrisy (if he preferred the word), not to throw up the cards at once, and retire after the first week.