She brought the conversation back to his book; but there was a little touch of scorn in her voice, as if she thought to herself, “I suppose he is one of those people who can only talk on one subject—his own doings.” Her manner was almost brusque.
“Your novel has had a great success, has it not?” she asked.
He instantly perceived her thought, and replied with a touch of dignity and a proud smile:
“On the contrary, it has been a great failure; only three hundred and nine copies have been sold.”
“I wonder at that,” said Freda, “for one so often heard it talked of.”
He promptly changed the topic, and began to speak of the march past. “I want to see Lord Starcross,” he added. “I have no idea what a hero is like.”
Just then Lady Probyn came up, followed by an elderly harpy in spectacles and false, much-frizzed fringe.
“Mrs. Carsteen wishes to be introduced to you, Mr. Vaughan; she is a great admirer of your writings.”
And poor Derrick, who was then quite unused to the species, had to stand and receive a flood of the most fulsome flattery, delivered in a strident voice, and to bear the critical and prolonged stare of the spectacled eyes. Nor would the harpy easily release her prey. She kept him much against his will, and I saw him looking wistfully now and then towards Freda.
“It amuses me,” I said to her, “that Derrick Vaughan should be so anxious to see Lord Starcross. It reminds me of Charles Lamb’s anxiety to see Kosciusko, ‘for,’ said he, ‘I have never seen a hero; I wonder how they look,’ while all the time he himself was living a life of heroic self-sacrifice.”