Mrs. Viveash murmured the response, almost piously, as though she were worshipping almighty and omnipresent Nil. “I adore this tune,” she said, “this divine tune.” It filled up a space, it moved, it jigged, it set things twitching in you, it occupied time, it gave you a sense of being alive. “Divine tune, divine tune,” she repeated with emphasis, and she shut her eyes, trying to abandon herself, trying to float, trying to give Nil the slip.
“Ravishing little Toreador, that,” said Gumbril, who had been following the black-breeched travesty with affectionate interest.
Mrs. Viveash opened her eyes. Nil was unescapable. “With Piers Cotton, you mean? Your tastes are a little common, my dear Theodore.”
“Green-eyed monster!”
Mrs. Viveash laughed. “When I was being ‘finished’ in Paris,” she said, “Mademoiselle always used to urge me to take fencing lessons. C’est un exercice très gracieux. Et puis,” Mrs. Viveash mimicked a passionate earnestness, “et puis, ça dévelope le bassin. Your Toreador, Gumbril, looks as though she must be a champion with the foils. Quel bassin!”
“Hush,” said Gumbril. They were abreast of the Toreador and her partner. Piers Cotton turned his long greyhound’s nose in their direction.
“How are you?” he asked across the music.
They nodded. “And you?”
“Ah, writing such a book,” cried Piers Cotton, “such a brilliant, brilliant, flashing book.” The dance was carrying them apart. “Like a smile of false teeth,” he shouted across the widening gulf, and disappeared in the crowd.
“What’s he to Hecuba?” Lachrymosely, the hilarious blackamoors chanted their question, mournfully pregnant with its foreknown reply.