The two tittering girls stopped their staccato giggling for a moment, then resumed with a steadfastness of purpose that somehow robbed the effect of spontaneity. The young woman with the over-firm mouth took in the tableau of the airman and his little charge, and turned to her mother with some sarcastic comment that was strangely belied by the look of hunger in her eyes. The artist, still with his air of graceful insouciance, sat with half-closed eyelids and visualized Pippa as a subject for canvas. "What a Psyche she would make!" he muttered. The orchestra was just going to play, when the leader, who had been idly gazing at the throng of guests, made a gesture of dissent.
"We shall not do 'Oh, that Opium Rag,'" he said. "You see that girl there, with the dark curls and the sweet little face? For her let us play Mendelssohn's 'Spring Song.'"
Quite unaware of their interested audience, the flying-man and his companion continued their excursion into the realm of fables, while untouched toast and half-emptied cups stood by in neglected array.
"That is practically all the story," he said. "When the war came on, they murdered poor old Convention."
"Oh!"
"Slaughtered him," he said gloomily; "though all his bad courtiers escaped. For a long time it was feared that the king's son, Courtesy, and his niece, Charm (who were very much in love with each other), had also been done to death, but there are rumors that they have been seen in remote parts of England. So, Pippa, that is why these young women look and act alike. They are the murderers of Convention."
"Monsieur, I am frightened."
He produced his pipe, received a horrified look from a gorgeous waiter, and hurriedly replaced it in his pocket. "The first thing the women did," he went on, "was to place Vulgarity and his Queen, Stupidity, on the throne; but there are signs that their reign will be brief. When the men come back and the quiet women speak, I think we shall see another Revolution that will put Courtesy and Charm in the place of Vulgarity and Stupidity. So, after all, my dear"—he grew quite cheerful at the thought—"poor old Shaw may have done some good in inciting the murder of Convention. Perhaps, though the thought would annoy him frightfully, he may yet go down to history as a martyr—the reformer who stood on his head!"
But she was not listening to him. She was silently enjoying, for the first time, the fragrance of Mendelssohn's Melody of Spring, which found immediate response in her nature, so attuned to the delicate things of life. It had a somewhat contrary effect on the others, whose conversation, which had begun to lag, took on fresh impetus with the sound of the orchestra.
"Tell me," she whispered, vastly puzzled, "why do they talk so loud when there is music?"