“I never imagined you’d kick,” he had said, plaintively. “You’re always so generous, Father.”
He finished scrupulously tying his white tie.
“Do I look like a monkey?” he asked. “Father said I would.”
He followed his mother downstairs into the dining-room, and the others joined them promptly. There was an air of general satisfaction at the dinner table. They were all pleased with themselves, individually and as a family; they were all unusually festive and spirited. Andrée, the heroine, was blazing with excitement.
“You’d better eat,” said Lance, warningly to her. Music was no more to him than a passing phenomenon in the course of man’s history; it served to show something of the development of his brain and æsthetic sense, but it would, he felt, in the course of time be regarded as nothing more than a frivolity. It was interesting to see how seriously it was now regarded. Still, he was fond of Andrée, and he wished her to be successful, if only for her mother’s sake. He had an unwavering loyalty for Claudine, never expressed, never quite comprehended by her, something which in a less preoccupied man might have been called devotion.
Bertie had once said that Lance had “mastered evolution”; certainly he never seemed to grow older. With his light, rather long hair parted in the middle, his tortoise-shell spectacles, his slender figure, he looked like a sober and enquiring youth, a juvenile professor. He was quite illustrious, in the not very extensive circles where paleontologists may shine, he had been on two noteworthy government expeditions, and had written a large book, but he hadn’t made money. The most profitable thing he had ever done, financially, was to tutor young Bertie. But he was able to exist in comfortable independence, and he wanted no more. He had a calm self-assurance which impressed everyone, even Gilbert, and he was a guest not without honour, a friend of prestige.
He took out his watch.
“Time to start!” he announced, and they all rose.
§ ii
Mr. MacGregor expected a triumph that evening. He had hired a large hall, and had been promised the presence of several well-known musicians and critics, to say nothing of the important “society element.” He had been for years steadily growing in favour, until he now held a unique position as a master who was not only able to give to débutantes a very attractive accomplishment, but a man who trained and developed genuine artists. There was a certain youth from the Ghetto at present creating something of a furore as a concert player whom he had “made,” and several lesser stars. And he had now up his sleeve two or three surprises, to be released this evening. He had a boy—a young Pole whom he had been teaching gratis and more or less supporting, he had a young woman of buxom charm and amazing technic, and he had Andrée, whose chief claim was not so much in technic—though hers was of a high order—but the originality of her interpretations. He knew that some of the critics would be indignant at a lack of classic reverence, but others would be charmed, and all of them would talk.