Despencer broke off, and gazed thoughtfully at his companion.
“Well, what is it? What do you suggest?”
“I fancy that the best thing you can do, if you wish to bring matters to a head, is to have Miss Yorke here.”
“Mr. Despencer!”
“Why not? You see, it isn’t as though she weren’t quite respectable. There may be rumors about her, but then there are rumors about everybody. If we paid attention to rumors, we should all have to shut ourselves up like hermits; except you, there is not a woman in London whom I could visit. As long as nothing is known about her, you will be quite safe in having her here—of course, I mean professionally.”
The marchioness looked a little relieved.
“That doesn’t sound quite so bad,” she admitted. “I could have her at my concert, and let her sing something. I suppose she wouldn’t be altogether too frightfully improper?”
“Oh, dear no! you needn’t fear anything of that kind. Improper songs are quite gone out at the halls now. All Belle Yorke’s are about seamstresses who starve to death in the East End, and ragged boys who insist on taking off their jackets to wrap them round their little sisters on doorsteps in the snow. She makes people cry like anything. I have seen a stockbroker sobbing in the stalls of the Empire as if his heart would break when the ragged boy gets frozen to death, and the little sister wonders why he doesn’t answer her any more.”
“How sweetly touching! I shall insist on her singing that one here. I am sure I shall cry.” The marchioness lifted a small gold watch, the size of a bean, that swung from a brooch on her left shoulder. “Can you reach the bell? I must speak to Victoria before anybody comes.”
Despencer rose, and walked across the room to press a small malachite knob placed in the wall beside the fireplace, in accordance with that mysterious law of connection which every one must have observed, though we believe it has never been decided whether the bell is an acquired characteristic of the fireplace, or the fireplace an acquired characteristic of the bell.