This was rather stupid of Stephen. He ought to have guessed that Lucia’s second appearance was officially intended to be her first. He grasped that when she squeezed her way through the crowd and greeted him as if they had not met before that morning.
“And dearest Adele,” she said. “What a crush! Tell me quickly, where are the caricatures of Pepino and me? I’m dying to see them; and when I see them no doubt I shall wish I was dead.”
The light of Luciaphilism came into Adele’s intelligent eyes.
“We’ll look for them together,” she said. “Ah thirty-nine and forty. They must be somewhere just ahead.”
Lucia exerted a steady indefatigable pressure on those in front, and presently came into range.
“Well, I never!” she said. “Oh, but so like Pepino! How could Bertie have told he got his sword entangled just like that? And look what he says.... Oh, and then Me! Just because I met him at Marcia’s party and people were wanting to know when I had an evening free! Of all the impertinences! How I shall scold him!”
Lucia did it quite admirably in blissful unconsciousness that Adele knew she had been here before. She laughed, she looked again and laughed again (Mrs. Lucas and Lady Brixton in fits of merriment over the cartoon of Mr. Lucas and herself, thought Hermione.)
“Ah, and there’s Lord Hurtacombe,” she said. “I’m sure that’s Lord Hurtacombe, though you can’t see much of him, and, look, Olga surely, is it not? How does he do it?”
That was a very clever identification for one who had not previously studied the catalogue, for Olga’s face consisted entirely of a large open mouth and the tip of a chin, it might have been the face of anybody yawning. Her arms were stretched wide, and she towered above a small man in shorts.
“The last scene in Siegfried, I’m sure,” said Lucia. “What does the catalogue say, Stephen? Yes, I am right. ‘Siegfried! Brunnhilde!’ How wicked, is it not? But killing! Who could be cross with him?”