“I believe so, sir,” the girl answered.
“Then tell her that I wish to present to her the stranger of whom she has heard.”
She bowed and turned, not replying, to a further door; but as she turned she raised her eyes and fixed them on Jeremy with a frank, almost insolent stare. Then, without pausing, she was gone. The Speaker slipped into the chair she had left and drummed absently with his fingers on the table. When the girl returned he paid hardly any attention to her message that the Lady Burney was ready to receive them. A fit of abstraction seemed to have settled down on him; and he impatiently waved her on one side, while he drew Jeremy in his train.
Jeremy was doubtful how he ought to show his respect to the stout and ugly woman who sat on her couch in this room with an air of bovine dissatisfaction. He bowed very low and did not, apparently, increase her displeasure. She held out two fingers to him, a perplexing action; but it seemed from the stiffness of her arm that she did not expect him to kiss them. He shook and dropped them awkwardly and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he was able to examine the first lady of England and her surroundings, while, with much less interest and an expression of stupid aloofness, she examined him.
She was dressed in the same manner as the girl who waited in the ante-room, though her gown seemed to be of silk, and was much more richly as well as more garishly embroidered. It struck Jeremy that she harmonized well with the room in which she sat. It was filled with ornaments, cushions, mats and woven hangings of a coarse and gaudy vulgarity; and the woodwork on the walls was carved and gilded in the style of a florid picture-frame. The occupant of this tawdry magnificence was stout, and her unwieldy figure was disagreeably displayed by what seemed to be the prevailing fashion of dress. Her cheeks were at once puffy and lined and were too brilliantly painted; and the lashes of her dull, heavy eyes were extravagantly blackened. Jeremy hoped that his attitude, while he noted all these details, was sufficiently respectful.
It must have satisfied the Lady Burney, for, after a long pause, she observed in a gracious manner:
“I was anxious to see you. Why do you look like every one else? I thought your clothes would have been different.”
Jeremy explained that he had been clothed anew so that he should not appear too conspicuous. She assented with a movement of her head and went on:
“It would have been more interesting to see you in your old clothes. Do you—do you——” She yawned widely and gazed round the room with vague eyes, as though looking for the rest of her question. “Do you find us much changed?” she finished at last.
“Very much changed, madam,” Jeremy replied with gravity. “So much changed that I should hardly know how to begin to tell you what the changes are.”