“Oh, Mr. Boyton,” she said, “do you think they are really enjoying themselves? If they are, it has nothing to do with me——”
He interrupted.
“Let us instantly find a horse-marine,” he said, “to whom to confide that astounding information. Where is a horse-marine; I insist on a horse-marine being produced without delay. You are like that industrious conjurer whom I remember seeing in ancient days at the Egyptian Hall, who kept with a touch of his deft hand half a dozen plates and a washing basin all miraculously dancing together on a small table without pause or collision. You have the touch—nature is it, or art? I suspect the consummate art that counterfeits nature—the touch that makes the whole world grin. We, cross-grained people, are just a collection of smiles when we are here. And what a supreme collection! I, the commonest of your specimens, cannot help swelling with scarcely decent exultation at the fact that for the moment I belong to it. Think of them! Lord Thorley moving about in worlds not realized. I always feel inclined to address him, ‘Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height.’ There is something virginal about that beautiful, aloof mind.”
She laughed.
“I saw him revoke just now at bridge,” she said. “That was human of him.”
“No, I take it the other way round. He was soaring somewhere on eagle’s wings; his revoke was but a moulted feather, an eagle’s feather that fluttered down from the empyrean. But I insist on going on with the survey of your spinning plates. There is our dear Duchess, whom I take to be no other than an incarnation of La Grande Bretagne out on a bank holiday. There is Monsieur Pelleton, who no less surely stands for France, and there is Sir Hermann Gurtner, who, although he plays bridge by the Thames, is no less surely the spirit of the ‘Watch by the Rhine,’ for the moment, it is true, asleep. There is Mrs. Pounce, in whom we are right to behold the States of America united in one small and imperfectly constructed human frame, for the shortness of her legs is as remarkable as the length of her tongue. There is Geoffrey Bellingham, in whose eyes abide the visions of Velasquez, and in whose mouth a confused noise welters; there is Kuhlmann, in whose mouth Song itself makes its home, and in whose eyes, as far as I can judge, a wild cat. And each of these great personages requires, in the ordinary way, a whole stage to himself, with a mute and enthralled audience. But here they are merely harmonious and humble spectators, who but rise from their seats to applaud.”
Mr. Boyton outlined this brilliant little sketch in the manner of a lightning artist at a music-hall. It seemed dashed in with all the effervescent charm of an improvisation, but behind the improvisation, just as in the case of the music-hall artist, there had been much quiet study in the composition of its neat phrasing. But it came out fresh as the milky-green of the beech foliage above him.
“Ah, but you have left out Robin and Mrs. Lockwater,” said Lady Grote. “Do say something delicious about Robin.”
“Just now they appeared to be enacting the fable of Endymion and the Moon in reversed rôles,” said Mr. Boyton. “Robin as Endymion was attempting to wake up the Moon. The Moon appeared gratified but drowsy.”
“That will do; that is charming. Robin is the most awful flirt. He has always got a moon on hand, which changes with remarkable rapidity. But we must get back, I am afraid; it is nearly dinner-time. Don’t dress, Mr. Boyton, unless you feel inclined. There are lots of people going back to town after dinner who won’t.”