“Oh, you can leave mine out, too!” said Lady Despard, good-naturedly.
Meanwhile, Doris made her way through the crowd, and the duchess’ prophecy was speedily fulfilled. Men and women, as they made room for the slight, girlish figure to pass, looked after her with a startled curiosity, and turned to each other, asking eager questions, some of which were pitched in a quite high enough key for Doris to hear. But, with the modest self-possession which her training had bestowed upon her, she reached the piano, learned the name of the piece, and returned to the duchess.
“It is Beethoven’s sonata in G, your grace,” she said in her low, musical voice.
“Thank you, my dear,” said the duchess. “It was very good-natured of you to take so much trouble. Good-by, Lady Despard,” and as she shook hands with her hostess she bestowed a smile and a nod on Doris.
Lady Despard laughed.
“My dear,” she said, “you are going to be a success. It isn’t often the duchess is so amiable.”
Two hours later, Mr. Spenser Churchill, with a smile that seemed to cast a benediction on everything it lighted on, was slowly walking down the still warm pavement of Bentham street, Soho.
Bentham street, Soho, is by no means an aristocratic thoroughfare, and the eminent philanthropist had to meander in and out of a crowd of dirty children, who shouted and sprawled over the curb and pavement, much to their own delight and the peril of the foot passengers; but Mr. Churchill seemed quite familiar with the street and its humors, and, stopping at a house half-way down, knocked at the door as if he had done it before.
A young and overgrown girl shuffled along the passage, and answering an inquiry of Mr. Churchill’s as to whether Mr. Perry Levant was in, nodded an affirmative, and requested Mr. Churchill to follow her. She knocked at a door on the first floor, and receiving a peculiarly clear-voiced “Come in,” opened the door, and jerked her finger by way of invitation to Mr. Churchill to enter.
Notwithstanding the neighborhood in which it was situated, and the dingy condition of the rest of the house, this room was comfortably furnished, and indicated the possession of some amount of taste by its occupant. There was a fair-sized table, with a large bowl of flowers in the center, some pictures rather good than bad, a Collard & Collard piano stood on one side of the small room, with a guitar leaning against it. Besides the pictures, there hung on the walls a pair of fencing foils and masks, and a set of boxing-gloves.