Lady Selina. Indeed!
Lady Flumm. Yes, indeed! You see he is a mortal man after all. Bring me, my love, the book you will find open on the table in the boudoir. I wish to show Mr. Turnstile the passages I have marked this morning.
Lady Selina. (Returning with the book, and running over the leaves.) “Lace made by caterpillars.”—“Steam-engines with fairy fingers.”—“Robe of nature.”—“Sun of science.”—“Faltering worshipper.”—“Altar of truth.” It is, indeed, delightful! The taste, the poetical imagination, are surprising. I hope, Mr. Turnstile,—indeed I am sure, that you love music?
Turnstile. Not very particularly, I must acknowledge (smiling); a barrel-organ is the instrument most in my way.
Lady Flumm. (Smiling.) Music and machinery, Mr. Turnstile. Polite literature and mathematics. You do know how to combine. Others must judge of the profounder parts of your works; but the style, and the fancy, are what I should most admire.—You dine with Lord Flumm, he tells me, on Tuesday. Now you must come to me on Thursday night.
Turnstile. I am sorry to say, that, on recollection, I ought to {281} have apologized to Lord Flumm. The Pottery Question stands for Tuesday; and I should be there, as one of the Committee; and Thursday, your Ladyship knows, is the second reading of the Place and Pension Bill.
Lady Flumm. Oh, we are Staffordshire people! that will excuse you to the pottery folks; and, for Thursday, I will absolutely take no excuse. We have Pasta and Donzelli! perhaps a quadrille afterwards—(you dance, Mr. Turnstile?)—and Lady Sophia C—— and her cousin, Lord F——, have said so much about those beautiful passages at the end of your book, that they will be quite disappointed if I do not keep my promise to introduce them. (Touching his arm with her finger.)
Turnstile. Your Ladyship knows how to conquer: I feel that I cannot refuse. [Exit.
SCENE VII.—Grosvenor-square; before LORD FLUMM’S house.
Enter TURNSTILE, from the house.