. . .This prodigy of nature is the general topic of conversationin the metropolis.—JOHN FAIRBURN, 1815I slept like the dead that night, exhausted by my previous worries, dreaming I was a compass point fixed upon a hand, spinning round and round, as in a waltz.Irene always ordered breakfast in our room when we traveled. It was frightfully extravagant, but her own highly rewarded “cases,” and Godfrey’s increasing Rothschild commissions, made all possible. I was finding the habit of lavish breakfasts amenable myself. The custom bowed to Irene’s former theatrical life, when she stayed up until three and rose at ten, then spent an hour or so nibbling on breakfast foods and sipping cups of bitter, strong coffee sweetened with cream and sugar over the daily newspapers, railing or purring at reviews, and preparing her toilette for the day.Even Godfrey, industrious barrister that he was, always up with the swallows when I had worked for him years ago, had converted to Irene’s luxurious habit of morning lethargy.
