Thank Heaven Fasting Read Online Free PDF

very nice.”
    â€œLovely, Miss Monica. And madam’s silver sequins are beautiful, too. Now let me put on your dressing-gown again, miss, to keep everything quite safe. There! That’s the bell. That’ll be the hairdresser.”
    â€œParsons! Ask if I can come in and sit with madam while he’s doing her.”
    â€œYes, Miss Monica.”
    In five minutes Parsons was back with the necessary permission, and Monica, with the dressing-gown gathered round her, and one hand carefully holding up the folds of the white satin beneath, had gone down to her mother’s room.
    Mrs. Ingram sat before the dressing-table, her head held motionless, whilst the tall, yellow-headed assistant from the Maison André Leroy in Sloane Street swiftly and vigorously twisted the hot irons in and out of her hair.
    â€œSit down, my pet. Are you all ready except for your hair?”
    â€œYes, mother.”
    â€œYou’re burning me—be
careful—
——” squeaked Mrs. Ingram suddenly.
    â€œI’m very sorry, madam, I beg your pardon.” The young man, with an air of acute concern, snatched the tongs out of Mrs. Ingram’s hair and held them up to his own face.
    â€œI
beg
your pardon, madam. I don’t think it’s done any real harm, madam—the hair is not scorched. I’m extremely sorry it should have happened.”
    â€œWell.”
    The young man, looking deeply contrite, resumed his operations, and Mrs. Ingram muttered to her daughter:
    â€œIl est aussi stupide que possible.”
    Monica nodded intelligently.
    â€œDarling, look on my writing-table, and you’ll find a menu card. It’s one I spoilt. Just read it through, and then you’ll know how dinner is getting on, and be ready to jump up directly I catch Lady Margaret Miller’s eye. It’s such a bore if one person doesn’t realize and goes on talking.”
    Monica fetched the stiff white card, with its narrow gilt edge, and read the items, although without any very great feelings of interest, from soups—thick and clear—turbot sauce madère, and sole meunière, entrée and joint, hot and cold sweets, savoury—canapés à I’indienne, of course—to bombe glacée—which was the only item that aroused in her a faint anticipation of enjoyment.
    â€œI see, mother. It ought to be very nice.”
    â€œOf course it’ll be very nice, darling. I didn’t ask you for your little opinion on the menu—what can you possibly know about it?” said her mother, laughing. “But you must learn how these things are done, of course. Directly dessert is finished, I shall make the move.
    â€œMr. Ashe will take you into dinner, and you’ll have Lady Margaret’s son, young Peter Miller, on the other side of you. The one you met at lunch the other day, at the Marlowes’.”
    â€œI don’t remember which one he was,” admitted Monica, with a confused recollection of a large Sunday lunch-party,and an indistinguishable herd of black-coated, grey-trousered men, and introductions performed in Cecily’s shyest and most inaudible manner.
    Mrs. Ingram made a sound with her tongue against the roof of her mouth, indicating dismay and disapproval.
    â€œDarling, that’s one of the things you’ll have to learn—and as quickly as possible. You’ve
got
to remember who people are, and recognize them when you see them again, and not look blank and uninterested. A man is very quickly put off, if he thinks that a girl hasn’t even taken the trouble to remember what he looks like.”
    â€œI’ll try,” said Monica meekly.
    â€œMr. Miller is in the Foreign Office, and he’s the second son of Lady Margaret Miller, who was a Farren of Earlswick, and an heiress. He’ll be quite well off some day. The one who’ll take you into dinner, and to whom you must talk most, of course, is Claude Ashe. His father