“A paragraph wholly inspired and utterly false,” Mademoiselle Celaire declared, firmly, sitting a little forward in the car, and laying her hand, ablaze with jewels, upon his coat sleeve. “Listen. They call themselves Hungarians. Bah! I know that they are in touch with a great European court, both of them, the court of the country to which they belong. They have plans, plans and schemes connected with their visit here, which I do not understand. I have done my best with Andrea Korust, but he is not a man to be trusted. I know that there is something more in these seven supper parties than idle hospitality. I and others like me, artistes and musicians, are invited, to give the assembly a properly Bohemian tone; but there are to be other guests, attracted there, no doubt, because the papers have spoken of these gatherings.”
“You have some idea of what it all means, in your mind?” Peter suggested.
“It is too vague to put into words,” she declared, shaking her head. “We must both watch. Afterwards, we will, if you like, compare notes.”
The car drew up before the doors of a handsome house in Hamilton Place. A footman received Peter and relieved him of his hat and overcoat. A trim maid performed the same office for Mademoiselle Celaire. They met, a moment or two later, and were ushered into a large drawing-room in which a dozen or two of men and women were already assembled, and from which came a pleasant murmur of voices and laughter. The apartment was hung with pale green satin; the furniture was mostly Chippendale, upholstered in the same shade. A magnificent grand piano stood open in a smaller room, just visible beyond. Only one thing seemed strange to the two newly arrived guests. The room was entirely lit with shaded candles, giving a certain mysterious but not unpleasant air of obscurity to the whole suite of apartments. Through the gloom, the jewels and eyes of the women seemed to shine with a new brilliance. Slight eccentricities of toilette, for a part of the gathering was distinctly Bohemian, were softened and subdued. The whole effect was somewhat weird, but also picturesque.
Andrea Korust advanced from a little group to meet his guests. Off the stage he seemed at first sight frailer and slighter than ever. His dress coat had been exchanged for a velvet dinner jacket, and his white tie for a drooping black bow. He had a habit of blinking nearly all the time, as though his large brown eyes, which he seldom wholly opened, were weaker than they appeared to be. Nevertheless, when he came to within a few paces of his newly arrived visitors, they shone with plenty of expression. Without any change of countenance, however, he held out his hand.
“Dear Andrea,” Mademoiselle Celaire exclaimed, “you permit me that I present to you my dear friend, well known in Paris—alas! many years ago—Monsieur le Baron de Grost. Monsieur le Baron was kind enough to pay his respects to me this evening, and I have induced him to become my escort here.”
“It was my good fortune,” Peter remarked, smiling, “that I saw Mademoiselle Celaire’s name upon the bills this evening—my good fortune, since it has procured for me the honor of an acquaintance with a musician so distinguished.”
“You are very kind, Monsieur le Baron,” Korust replied.
“You stay here, I regret to hear, a very short time?”
“Alas!” Andrea Korust admitted, “it is so. For myself I would that it were longer. I find your London so attractive, the people so friendly. They fall in with my whims so charmingly. I have a hatred, you know, of solitude. I like to make acquaintances wherever I go, to have delightful women and interesting men around, to forget that life is not always gay. If I am too much alone, I am miserable, and when I am miserable I am in a very bad way indeed. I cannot then make music.”