“Oh, I’ve met him a score of times,” she said. “He’s one of the people who is always there. He sat between us once at the opera, I think I remember. One evening when Lord Poole made love to you, dear. But, somehow, he’s never been to your house yet.”
“That’s more than most can say,” remarked Mrs. Wardour, so nearly smacking her lips that an impartial umpire might have said that “it counted.” This set Silvia laughing.
“And what have I said now?” asked Mrs. Wardour.
It was not so much what her mother was saying as what she was being that so continually kept Silvia in a state of simmering hilarity. Contemplate it as she might, she had never been able to comprehend the impulse, or rather the steady, unwavering devotion, that had kept Mrs. Wardour at such high pressure all these weeks. She did not enjoy the process of these eternal entertainments; the gaiety of others did not make her gay; music made no appeal to her; she was long past the age of dancing (though so many of her contemporaries were not), and yet she would sit benignly content through the short hours of the summer night, with her great tiara on her head, and feeling the heat acutely, for the mere pleasure of being there. That she was there was now undeniable, and, happily, having got there, she suffered no disillusionment. The mere chasse, the acquisition, was certainly not the mainspring of her activities. She had engaged in the chasse not for the sake of getting but of having....
The second terror of her busy life entered.
“Miss Heaton wants to know if you are at home, miss?” said the formidable Summerton.
It was a relief to Silvia’s mother that she had not got to “stand up” to Summerton, and, indeed, there was no crisis at all, for close behind him was Nellie.
“My dear, I was so afraid you might say that you weren’t at home,” she said, “that I thought it only my duty to save you telling lies. Am I interrupting? How are you, Mrs. Wardour? Send me away if I am intruding, or say that you have just gone out if you don’t want me to stop, and I will promise to believe you.”
Silvia had risen with a flush of pleasure on her face at the entrance of her friend. From all the new acquaintances of London, Nellie had made a shining emergence; through all the mists and bewilderments of the new life she shone with a steady beam, like the luminous finger from a lighthouse, clear and steadfast above the complicated currents.
“But this is lovely,” said Silvia. “Sit down. Tea? Something? Anything?”