“Very pretty: I call that very pretty. Honk!” said Robert when the morsel was finished, “I call that music.”
“Dear Mr. Robert, how sweet of you,” said Lucia, wheeling round on the music-stool. “Now positively, I will not touch another note. But may we, might we, have another little tune on your wonderful wireless, Miss Olga! Such a treat! I shall certainly have one installed at Brompton Square, and listen to it while Pepino is doing his cross-word puzzles. Pepino can think of nothing else now but Auction Bridge and cross-word puzzles, and interrupts me in the middle of my practice to ask for an Athenian sculptor whose name begins with P and is of ten letters.”
“Ah, I’ve got it,” said Pepino, “Praxiteles.”
Lucia clapped her hands.
“Bravo,” she said. “We shall not sit up till morning again.”
There was a splendour in the ruthlessness with which Lucia bowled over, like ninepins, every article of her own Riseholme creed, which saw Bolshevism in all modern art, inanity in crossword puzzles and Bridge, and aimless vacuity in London.... Immediately after the fresh tune on the wireless began, and most unfortunately, they came in for the Funeral March of a Marionette. A spasm of pain crossed Lucia’s face, and Olga abruptly turned off this sad reminder of unavailing woe.
“Go on: I like that tune!” said the drowsy and thoughtless Robert, and a hurried buzz of conversation covered this melancholy coincidence.
It was already late, and Lucia rose to go.
“Delicious evening!” she said. “And lovely to think that we shall so soon be neighbours in London as well. My music-room always at your disposal. Are you coming, Georgie?”
“Not this minute,” said Georgie firmly.