“Mademoiselle,” cried Ned, “if I might take thence a rose to wear for a favour!”
“Oh, fie!” she answered, “that is not even original; it is to repeat Mr Sherree-den’s foolishness. And they are not roses at all.”
“Nor rouge,” said Ned, “though you once implied it.”
“No,” she said, with a pert glance at her gouvernante; “madame-maman does not approve. But sometimes to rub them with a geranium petal—that is not immoral, is it?”
“I don’t know,” cried the young man; “but the geranium shall be my queen of flowers from this time!”
“Pamela!” cried madame, in desperate chagrin over every word that passed between the two, yet impotent, under existing circumstances, to give expression to her annoyance; but she ventured to summon the child pretty peremptorily to come and walk beside her, and only in this order was my lord destined to enjoy for an hour a divided pleasure.
But on the second and final occasion of his meeting her, chance and the girl were even less favourable to him. He was to start for Belgium on the Friday morning, and on the Thursday evening he walked over to Bury to receive his instructions. He found signs of confusion in the house—boxes choking the passages, personal litter of all kinds brought together as if for removal; and in the drawing-room a little concert—such as madame loved to extemporise—was in process of performance, with Mr Sheridan, in mighty boisterous spirits, for only listener. He invited Ned to a seat beside him, and clapped him on the shoulder.
“’Tis admirable,” said he; “not concert, but concertation. There is no conductor but a lightning-conductor could direct these warring elements.”
Madame, indeed, set the time on her harp; but it was the time that waits for no man. A Bœotian—of whom there were a half-dozen in the orchestra—might pant, a mere winded laggard, into his flute; another might toilfully climb the last bars on his fiddle, as if it were a gate; a third might pound up the long hill of his double-bass, and cross its very bridge with a shriek like a view-holloa: the issue was the same—none was in at the death. Pamela, in the meantime, tinkled on a triangle; Mademoiselle Sercey shook a little panic cluster of sledge-bells whenever madame glanced her way; Mademoiselle d’Orléans played on the side-drum amiably, and with all the execution of a toy-rabbit. It was all very merry, and the girls giggled famously; and Ned closed his eyes and tried to think that the mellow ring of the steel was from the forging by Love of his bolts on a tiny anvil.
By-and-by the piece ended amidst laughter, and madame came from her place and conducted her cavalier into another room.