Edgar Degas Woman Combing Her Hair painting

Edgar Degas Woman Combing Her Hair paintingFrederic Edwin Church Autumn paintingTitian Sacred and Profane Love [detail] painting
Suddenly the daze in which she had been moving cleared. Here on the stairs were the two women she had not invited—Lady Mockstock the draper’s daughter, Lady Gordon the American.
She drew herself up and fixed them with her blank, blue eyes.
“I had not expected this honour,” she said. “Please forgive me if I am unable to entertain you.”
The Mockstocks and the Gordons stood aghast; saw the mad blue eyes of their hostess, her crimson dress; the ballroom beyond, looking immense in its emptiness; heard the dance echoing through the empty house. The air was charged with the scent of chrysanthemums. And then the drama and unreality of the scene were dispelled. Miss Fleace suddenly sat down, and holding out her hands to her butler, said, “I don’t quite know what’s happening.”
He and two of the hired footmen carried the old lady to a sofa. She spoke only once more. Her mind was still on the same subject. “They came uninvited, those two ... and nobody else.”