"It is impossible ever to forget it," said Coningsby, leading her to the piano with great politeness, but only with great politeness.
"Where is Mademoiselle Flora?" she inquired.
Coningsby found La Pet.i.te crouching as it were behind some furniture, and apparently looking over some music. She looked up as he approached, and a smile stole over her countenance. "I am come to ask a favour," he said, and he named his request.
"I will sing," she replied; "but only tell me what you like."
Coningsby felt the difference between the courtesy of the head and of the heart, as he contrasted the manner of Lucretia and Flora. Nothing could be more exquisitely gracious than the daughter of Colonna was to-night; Flora, on the contrary, was rather agitated and embarra.s.sed; and did not express her readiness with half the facility and the grace of Lucretia; but Flora"s arm trembled as Coningsby led her to the piano.
Meantime Lord Eskdale and Sidonia are in deep converse.
"Hah! that is a fine note!" said Sidonia, and he looked round. "Who is that singing? Some new _protegee_ of Lord Monmouth?"
""Tis the daughter of the Colonnas," said Lord Eskdale, "the Princess Lucretia."
"Why, she was not at dinner to-day."
"No, she was not there."
"My favourite voice; and of all, the rarest to be found. When I was a boy, it made me almost in love even with Pisaroni."
"Well, the Princess is scarcely more lovely. "Tis a pity the plumage is not as beautiful as the note. She is plain."
"No; not plain with that brow."
"Well, I rather admire her myself," said Lord Eskdale. "She has fine points."
"Let us approach," said Sidonia.
The song ceased, Lord Eskdale advanced, made his compliments, and then said, "You were not at dinner to-day."
"Why should I be?" said the Princess.
"For our sakes, for mine, if not for your own," said Lord Eskdale, smiling. "Your absence has been remarked, and felt, I a.s.sure you, by others as well as myself. There is my friend Sidonia so enraptured with your thrilling tones, that he has abruptly closed a conversation which I have been long counting on. Do you know him? May I present him to you?"
And having obtained a consent, not often conceded, Lord Eskdale looked round, and calling Sidonia, he presented his friend to the Princess.
"You are fond of music, Lord Eskdale tells me?" said Lucretia.
"When it is excellent," said Sidonia.
"But that is so rare," said the Princess.
"And precious as Paradise," said Sidonia. "As for indifferent music, "tis Purgatory; but when it is bad, for my part I feel myself--"
"Where?" said Lord Eskdale.
"In the last circle of the Inferno," said Sidonia.
Lord Eskdale turned to Flora.
"And in what circle do you place us who are here?" the Princess inquired of Sidonia.
"One too polished for his verse," replied her companion.
"You mean too insipid," said the Princess. "I wish that life were a little more Dantesque."
"There is not less treasure in the world," said Sidonia, "because we use paper currency; and there is not less pa.s.sion than of old, though it is _bon ton_ to be tranquil."
"Do you think so?" said the Princess, inquiringly, and then looking round the apartment. "Have these automata, indeed, souls?"
"Some of them," said Sidonia. "As many as would have had souls in the fourteenth century."
"I thought they were wound up every day," said the Princess.
"Some are self-impelling," said Sidonia.
"And you can tell at a glance?" inquired the Princess. "You are one of those who can read human nature?"
""Tis a book open to all."
"But if they cannot read?"
"Those must be your automata."
"Lord Monmouth tells me you are a great traveller?"
"I have not discovered a new world."
"But you have visited it?"
"It is getting old."
"I would sooner recall the old than discover the new," said the Princess.
"We have both of us cause," said Sidonia. "Our names are the names of the Past."
"I do not love a world of Utility," said the Princess.
"You prefer to be celebrated to being comfortable," said Sidonia.
"It seems to me that the world is withering under routine."
""Tis the inevitable lot of humanity," said Sidonia. "Man must ever be the slave of routine: but in old days it was a routine of great thoughts, and now it is a routine of little ones."
The evening glided on; the dance succeeded the song; the ladies were fast vanishing; Coningsby himself was meditating a movement, when Lord Beaumanoir, as he pa.s.sed him, said, "Come to Lucian Gay"s room; we are going to smoke a cigar."
This was a favourite haunt, towards midnight, of several of the younger members of the party at the Castle, who loved to find relaxation from the decorous gravities of polished life in the fumes of tobacco, the inspiration of whiskey toddy, and the infinite amus.e.m.e.nt of Lucian Gay"s conversation and company. This was the genial hour when the good story gladdened, the pun flashed, and the song sparkled with jolly mirth or saucy mimicry. To-night, being Coningsby"s initiation, there was a special general meeting of the Grumpy Club, in which everybody was to say the gayest things with the gravest face, and every laugh carried a forfeit. Lucian was the inimitable president. He told a tale for which he was famous, of "the very respectable county family who had been established in the shire for several generations, but who, it was a fact, had been ever distinguished by the strange and humiliating peculiarity of being born with sheep"s tails." The remarkable circ.u.mstances under which Lucian Gay had become acquainted with this fact; the traditionary mysteries by which the family in question had succeeded for generations in keeping it secret; the decided measures to which the chief of the family had recourse to stop for ever the rumour when it first became prevalent; and finally the origin and result of the legend; were details which Lucian Gay, with the most rueful countenance, loved to expend upon the attentive and expanding intelligence of a new member of the Grumpy Club. Familiar as all present were with the story whose stimulus of agonising risibility they had all in turn experienced, it was with extreme difficulty that any of them could resist the fatal explosion which was to be attended with the dreaded penalty. Lord Beaumanoir looked on the table with desperate seriousness, an ominous pucker quivering round his lip; Mr. Melton crammed his handkerchief into his mouth with one hand, while he lighted the wrong end of a cigar with the other; one youth hung over the back of his chair pinching himself like a faquir, while another hid his countenance on the table.