Part 50 (2/2)

”One gets used to everything, I suppose,” he said.

”But still it must be gratifying to you to be in so successful a piece--to be aware of the delight you are giving, evening after evening, to so many people,” Miss Honnor reminded him. ”By the way, how is the pretty Italian girl--the young lady you said you had known in Naples?”

”She has left the New Theatre,” he said, not lifting his eyes.

”Oh, really. Then I'm sure that must have been unfortunate for the operetta; for she had such a beautiful voice--she sang so exquisitely--and besides that there was go much refinement and grace in everything she did. I remember mother was so particularly struck with her; we have often spoken of her since; her manner on the stage was so charming--so gentle and graceful--it had a curious fascination that was irresistible. And I confess I was delighted with the little touch of foreign accent; perhaps if she had not been so very pretty, one would have been less ready to be pleased with everything. And where is she now, Mr. Moore?”

”I'm sure I don't know,” Lionel said, rather unwillingly; he would rather not have been questioned.

”And is that how friends.h.i.+ps in the theatre are kept up?” Miss Honnor said, reproachfully. ”But it is all very well for us idle folk to talk.

I suppose you are all far too busy to give much time to correspondence.”

”No, we have not much time for letter-writing,” he said, absently.

Indeed, it was well for him that he had this companion who could talk to him in her quiet, low tones; for he was out of spirits and inclined to be silent; and certainly he had no wish to join in the frothy discussion which Octavius Quirk had started at the upper end of the table. Mr.

Mellord, the famous Academician, had taken in Lady Adela to dinner; but she had placed Mr. Quirk on her left hand; and from this position of authority he was roaring away like any sucking-dove and challenging everybody to dispute his windy plat.i.tudes. Lord Rockminster, down at the other end, mute and in safety, was looking on at this motley little a.s.semblage, and probably wondering what his three gifted sisters would do next. It was hard that he had no Miss Georgie Lestrange to amuse him; perhaps Miss Georgie had been considered ineligible for admission into this intellectual coterie. Poor man!--and to think he might have been dining in solitary comfort at his club, at a quiet little table, with two candles, and a Sunday paper propped up by the water-bottle! But he betrayed no impatience; he sat and looked and meditated.

However, when dinner was over and the ladies had left the room, he had to go and take his sister's place, so that he found himself in the thick of the babble. Mr. Quirk was no longer goring spiders' webs; he was now attacking a solid and substantial subject--nothing less than the condition of the British army; and a pretty poor opinion he seemed to have of it. As it chanced, the only person who had seen service was Lord Rockminster (at Knightsbridge), but he did not choose to open his mouth, so that Mr. Quirk had it all his way--except when Maurice Mangan thought it worth while to give him a cuff or a kick, just by way of reminding him that he was mortal. Ichabod, in silence, stuck to the port wine.

Quincey Hooper, the American journalist, drew in a chair by the side of Lord Rockminster and humbly fawned. And meanwhile Quirk, head downward, so to speak, charged rank and file, and sent them flying; arose again and swept the heads off officers; and was just about to annihilate the volunteers when Mangan interrupted him.

”Oh, you expect too much,” he said, in his slow and half-contemptuous fas.h.i.+on. ”The British soldier is not over well-educated, I admit; but you needn't try him by an impossible standard. I dare say you are thinking of ancient days when a Roman general could address his troops in Latin and make quite sure of being understood; but you can't expect Tommy Atkins to be so learned. And our generals, as you say, may chiefly distinguish themselves at reviews; but the reviews they seem to me to be too fond of are those published monthly. As for the volunteers--”

”You will have a joke about them, too, I suppose,” Quirk retorted. ”An excellent subject for a joke--the safety of the country! A capital subject for a merry jest; Nero fiddling with Rome in flames--”

”I beg your pardon? Nero never did anything of the kind,” Mangan observed, with a perfectly diabolical inconsequence, ”for violins weren't invented in those days.”

This was too much for Mr. Quirk; he would not resume argument with such a trifler; nor, indeed, was there any opportunity; for Lord Rockminster now suggested they should go into the drawing-room--and Ichabod had to leave that decanter of port.

Now, if Maurice Mangan had come to this house to see how Lionel was feted and caressed by ”the great”--in order that he might carry the tale down to Winstead to please the old folk and Miss Francie--he was doomed to disappointment. There were very few of ”the great” present, to begin with; and those who were paid no particular attention to Lionel Moore. It was Octavius Quirk who appeared to be the hero of the evening, so far as the attention devoted to him by Lady Adela and her immediate little circle was concerned. But Maurice himself was not wholly left neglected. When tea was brought in, his hostess came over to where he was standing.

”Won't you sit down, Mr. Mangan?--I want to talk to you about something of very great importance--importance to me, that is, for you know how vain young authors are. You have heard of my new book?--yes, I thought Mr. Moore must have told you. Well, it's all ready, except the t.i.tle-page. I am not quite settled about the t.i.tle yet; and you literary gentlemen are so quick and clever with suggestions--I am sure you will give me good advice. And I've had a number of different t.i.tles printed, to see how they look in type; what do you think of this one? At present it seems to be the favorite; it was Mr. Quirk's suggestion--”

She showed him a slip with ”North and South” printed on it in large letters.

”I don't like it at all,” Mangan said, frankly. ”People will think the book has something to do with the American civil war. However, don't take my opinion at all. My connection with literature is almost infinitesimal--I'm merely a newspaper hack, you know.”

”What you say about the t.i.tle is _quite_ right? and I am _so_ much obliged to you, Mr. Mangan,” Lady Adela said, with almost pathetic emphasis. ”The American war, of course; I never thought of that!”

”What is Ichabod's choice?--I beg your pardon, I mean have you shown the t.i.tles to Mr. Egerton?”

”I'm afraid he doesn't approve of any of them,” said Lady Adela, sadly turning over the slips.

”No, I suppose not; good t.i.tles went out with good fiction--when he ceased to write novels a number of years ago. May I look at the others?”

She handed him the slips.

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