"If he can prove himself to be sufficiently the dupe of the English people," said Colney.
"Idol--dupe?" interjected Sir Rodwell, and his eyebrows fixed at the perch of Colney"s famous "national interrogation" over vacancy of understanding, as if from the pull of a string. He had his audience with him; and the satirist had nothing but his inner gush of acids at sight of a planted barb.
Colney was asked to explain. He never explained. He performed a series of astonishing leaps, like the branchy baboon above the traveller"s head in the tropical forest, and led them into the trap they a.s.sisted him to prepare for them. "No humour, do you say? The English have no humour?" a nephew of Lady Blachington"s inquired of him, with polite pugnacity, and was cordially a.s.sured, that "he vindicated them."
"And Altruistic! another specimen of the modern coinage," a cla.s.sical Church dignitary, in grammarian disgust, remarked to a lady, as they pa.s.sed.
Colney p.r.i.c.ked-up his ears. It struck him that he might fish for suggestions in aid of the Grand Argument before the Elders of the Court of j.a.pan. Dr. Wardan, whose recognition he could claim, stated to him, that the lady and he were enumerating words of a doubtfully legitimate quality now being inflicted upon the language.
"The slang from below is perhaps preferable?" said Colney.
"As little-less."
"But a pirate-tongue, cut-off from its roots, must continue to practise piracy, surely, or else take reinforcements in slang, otherwise it is inexpressive of new ideas."
"Possibly the new ideas are best expressed in slang."
"If insular. They will consequently be incommunicable to foreigners.
You would, then, have us be trading with tokens instead of a precious currency? Yet I cannot perceive the advantage of letting our ideas be clothed so racy of the obscener soil; considering the pretensions of the English language to become the universal. If we refuse additions from above, they force themselves on us from below."
Dr. Wardan liked the frame of the observations, disliked the substance.
"One is to understand that the English language has these pretensions?"
he said:--he minced in his manner, after the well-known mortar-board and ta.s.sel type; the mouthing of a petrifaction: clearly useless to the pleadings of the patriotic Dr. Bouthoin and his curate.
He gave no grip to Colney, who groaned at cheap Donnish sarcasm, and let him go, after dealing him a hard pellet or two in a cracker-covering.
There was Victor all over the field netting his ephemerae! And he who feeds on them, to pay a price for their congratulations and flatteries, he is one of them himself!
Nesta came tripping from the Rev. Septimus Barmby. "Dear Mr. Durance, where is Captain Dartrey?"
Mrs. Blathenoy had just conducted her husband through a crowd, for an introduction of him to Captain Dartrey. That was perceptible.
Dudley Sowerby followed Nesta closely: he struck across the path of the Rev. Septimus: again he had the hollow of her ear at his disposal.
"Mr. Radnor was excellent. He does everything consummately: really, we are all sensible of it. I am. He must lead us in a symphony. These light "champagne overtures" of French composers, as Mr. Fenellan calls them, do not bring out his whole ability:--Zampa, Le Pre aux clercs, Masaniello, and the like."
"Your duet together went well."
"Thanks to you--to you. You kept us together."
"Papa was the runaway or strain-the-leash, if there was one."
"He is impetuous, he is so fervent. But, Miss Radnor, I could not be the runaway-with you... with you at the piano. Indeed, I... shall we stroll down? I love the lake."
"You will hear the bell for your cold dinner very soon."
"I am not hungry. I would so much rather talk--hear you. But you are hungry? You have been singing twice: three times! Opera singers, they say, eat hot suppers; they drink stout. And I never heard your voice more effective. Yours is a voice that... something of the feeling one has in hearing cathedral voices: carry one up. I remember, in Dresden, once, a Fraulein Kuhnstreich, a prodigy, very young, considering her accomplishments. But it was not the same."
Nesta wondered at Dartrey Fenellan for staying so long with Mr. and Mrs.
Blathenoy.
"Ah, Mr. Sowerby, if I am to have flattery, I cannot take it as a milliner"s dumb figure wears the beautiful dress; I must point out my view of some of my merits."
"Oh! do, I beg, Miss... You have a Christian name and I too: and once ... not Mr. Sowerby: yes, it was Dudley!
"Quite accidentally, and a world of pardons entreated."
"And Dudley begged Dudley might be Dudley always!"
He was deepening to the Barmby intonation--apparently Cupid"s; but a shade more airily Pagan, not so fearfully clerical.
Her father had withdrawn Dartrey Fenellan from Mr. and Mrs. Blathenoy.
Dr. Schlesien was bowing with Dartrey.
"And if Durandarte would only--but you are one with Miss Graves to depreciate my Durandarte, in favour of the more cla.s.sical Jachimo; whom we all admire; but you shall be just," said she, and she pouted. She had seen her father plant Dartrey Fenellan in the midst of a group of City gentlemen.
Simeon touched among them to pluck at his brother. He had not a chance; he retired, and swam into the salmon-net of seductive Mrs. Blathenoy"s broad bright smile.
"It"s a matter of mines, and they"re hovering in the att.i.tude of the query, like corkscrews over a bottle, profoundly indifferent to blood-relationships," he said to her.
"Pray, stay and be consoled by me," said the fair young woman. "You are to point me out all the distinguished people. Is it true, that your brother has left the army?"
"Dartrey no longer wears the red. Here comes Colonel Corfe, who does.
England has her army still!"
"His wife persuaded him?"
"You see he is wearing the black."
"For her? How very very sad! Tell me--what a funnily dressed woman meeting that gentleman!"
"Hush--a friend of the warrior. Splendid weather, Colonel Corfe."
"Superb toilettes!" The colonel eyed Mrs. Blathenoy dilatingly, advanced, bowed, and opened the siege.
She decided a calculation upon his age, made a wall of it, smilingly agreed with his encomium of the Concert, and toned her voice to Fenellan"s comprehension: "Did it occur recently?"
"Months; in Africa; I haven"t the date."
"Such numbers of people one would wish to know! Who are those ladies holding a Court, where Mr. Radnor is?"
"Lady Carmine, Lady Swanage--if it is your wish?" interposed the colonel.
She dealt him a forgiving smile. "And that pleasant-looking old gentleman?"
Colonel Corfe drew-up. Fenellan said: "Are we veterans at forty or so?"
"Well, it "s the romance, perhaps!" She raised her shoulders.