“Oh, he talked about Riseholme affairs,” said Georgie. “He knew the Princess had been to the Museum, for he had seen her there. It was he, you know, who suggested the Museum. He kept writing Museum, though we thought it was ‘Mouse’ at first.”
Lucia felt perfectly certain in her own mind that Abfou had been saying things about her. But perhaps, as it was Daisy who had been operating, it was better not to ask what they were. Ignorance was not bliss, but knowledge might be even less blissful. And Georgie was not thawing: he was polite, he was reserved, but so far from chatting, he was talking with great care. She must get him in a more confidential mood.
“That reminds me,” she said. “Pepino and I haven’t given you anything for the Museum yet. I must send you the Elizabethan spit from my music-room. They say it is the most perfect spit in existence. I don’t know what Pepino didn’t pay for it.”
“How kind of you,” said Georgie. “I will tell the committee of your offer. Olga gave us a most magnificent present yesterday: the manuscript of ‘Lucrezia,’ which Cortese had given her. I took it to the Museum directly after breakfast, and put it in the glass case opposite the door.”
Again Lucia longed to be as sarcastic as Abfou, and asked whether a committee meeting had been held to settle if this should be accepted. Probably Georgie had some perception of that, for he went on in a great hurry.
“Well, the weedj lasted so long that I had only just time to get home to dress for dinner and go back to Olga’s,” he said.
“Who was there?” asked Lucia.
“Colonel and Mrs. Boucher, that’s all,” said Georgie. “And after dinner Olga sang too divinely. I played her accompaniments. A lot of Schubert songs.”
Lucia was beginning to feel sick with envy. She pictured to herself the glory of having taken her party across to Olga’s after dinner last night, of having played the accompaniments instead of Georgie (who was a miserable accompanist), of having been persuaded afterward to give them the little morsel of Stravinski, which she had got by heart. How brilliant it would all have been; what a sumptuous paragraph Hermione would have written about her week-end! Instead of which Olga had sung to those old Bouchers, neither of whom knew one note from another, nor cared the least for the distinction of hearing the prima-donna sing in her own house. The bitterness of it could not be suppressed.
“Dear old Schubert songs!” she said with extraordinary acidity. “Such sweet old-fashioned things. ‘Wiedmung,’ I suppose.”