One Saturday morning, at breakfast, Lydia said,
“Your late hours begin to interfere with the freshness of your complexion, Alice. I am getting a little fatigued, myself, with literary work. I will go to the Crystal Palace to-day, and wander about the gardens for a while; there is to be a concert in the afternoon for the benefit of Madame Szczymplica, whose playing you do not admire. Will you come with me?”
“Of course,” said Alice, resolutely dutiful.
“Of choice; not of course,” said Lydia. “Are you engaged for to-morrow evening?”
“Sunday? Oh, no. Besides, I consider all my engagements subject to your convenience.”
There was a pause, long enough for this assurance to fall perfectly flat. Alice bit her lip. Then Lydia said, “Do you know Mrs. Hoskyn?”
“Mrs. Hoskyn who gives Sunday evenings? Shall we go there?” said Alice, eagerly. “People often ask me whether I have been at one of them. But I don’t know her—though I have seen her. Is she nice?”
“She is a young woman who has read a great deal of art criticism, and been deeply impressed by it. She has made her house famous by bringing there all the clever people she meets, and making them so comfortable that they take care to come again. But she has not, fortunately for her, allowed her craze for art to get the better of her common-sense. She married a prosperous man of business, who probably never read anything but a newspaper since he left school; and there is probably not a happier pair in England.”
“I presume she had sense enough to know that she could not afford to choose,” said Alice, complacently. “She is very ugly.”
“Do you think so? She has many admirers, and was, I am told, engaged to Mr. Herbert, the artist, before she met Mr. Hoskyn. We shall meet Mr. Herbert there to-morrow, and a number of celebrated persons besides—his wife, Madame Szczymplica the pianiste, Owen Jack the composer, Hawkshaw the poet, Conolly the inventor, and others. The occasion will be a special one, as Herr Abendgasse, a remarkable German socialist and art critic, is to deliver a lecture on ‘The True in Art.’ Be careful, in speaking of him in society, to refer to him as a sociologist, and not as a socialist. Are you particularly anxious to hear him lecture?”