Miss Elizabeth sparkled through the chorus of laughter, but I remembered the “awful creature,” a genial and wise old man of affairs, whose daughter’s portrait George painted. Miss Elizabeth had missed his point: the canvasser’s phrase had been intended with humour, and even had it lacked that, it was not without a pretty quaintness. So I thought, being “left to my own reflections,” which may have partaken of my own special kind of snobbery; at least I regretted the Elizabeth of the morning garden and the early walk along the fringe of the woods. For she at my side to-night was another lady.
The banquet was drawing to a close when she leaned toward me and spoke in an undertone. As this was the first sign, in so protracted a period, that I might ever again establish relations with the world of men, it came upon me like a Friday’s footprint, and in the moment of shock I did not catch what she said.
“Anne Elliott, yonder, is asking you a question,” she repeated, nodding at a very pretty gal down and across the table from me. Miss Anne Elliott’s attractive voice had previously enabled me to recognise her as the young woman who had threatened to serenade Les Trois Pigeons.
“I beg your pardon,” I said, addressing her, and at the sound my obscurity was illuminated, about half of the company turning to look at me with wide-eyed surprise. (I spoke in an ordinary tone, it may need to be explained, and there is nothing remarkable about my voice).
“I hear you’re at Les Trois Pigeons,” said Miss Elliott.
“Yes?”
“WOULD you mind telling us something of the MYSTERIOUS Narcissus?”
“If you’ll be more definite,” I returned, in the tone of a question.
“There couldn’t be more than one like THAT,” said Miss Elliott, “at least, not in one neighbourhood, could there? I mean a RECKLESSLY charming vision with a WHITE tie and WHITE hair and WHITE flannels.”
“Oh,” said I, “HE’S not mysterious.”