"But Bayreuth was very fatiguing," she went on; "or is it Beyrout? Until one has heard the operas once, it is a terrible effort of attention. C'est le premier fois qui coûte. Really, I felt quite exhausted at the end of the circle, and I was so glad to get back to dear, delightful, foggy old London again, where one never has to attend to anything. And it looked so beautiful this morning as I drove down the Embankment. I see they have put up a new statue at the corner of Westminster Bridge—Queen Casabianca, or some such person."
Toby choked suddenly and violently.
"I've said something wrong, I expect," remarked Mrs. Murchison genially. "Tell me what it is, Lord Evelyn, or I should say Lord Toby."
"Toby, please."
"Well, Toby—— Dear me! how funny it sounds, considering I only saw you first in June! Ah, dear me, since first I saw your face, what a lot has happened! But if it's not Casabianca, who is it?"
"Boadicea, I think," said Toby.
"Dear me! so it is. How stupid of me! She comes in the Anglo-Saxon history, does she not? and she used to bleed beneath the Roman rods in the blue poetry book—or was it pink? I never can remember. But how it all comes back to one! Caractacus, too, and Alfred and the cakes, and the seven hills."
Mrs. Murchison beamed with happiness. She knew very well the difference between being a unit among a large house-party, and staying as an only guest, and this cottage by the sea seemed to her to be the very incarnation of the taste and culture of breeding. She knew also that several rich and aspiring acquaintances of hers were spending a week at Stanborough, and she proposed after lunch to stroll along the beach towards there, and perhaps call at the hotel on the links. Her friends were sure to ask where she was staying, and it would be charming to say:
"Oh, down at the cottage with Lady Conybeare. So delicious and rustic; there is no one there except Lily and dear Toby. Of course we are very happy about it. And don't you find a hotel quite intolerable?"
In the pause that followed Mrs. Murchison ran over her plans.