"Yonder is a Christian Scientist. And the man on the left advocates Mahomedanism as the State religion in England."
"While the dressmakers charge so ruinously, he'll never induce men to take four wives. And the woman in the red dress?"
"Lady Tansey--a believer in spirits."
"So I should imagine," said Lady Jim, surveying the lady's nose, which was long and thin and the hue of her gown.
"No, no! I talk of heavenly spirits. Lady Tansey has a large circle of departed friends, who rap."
"What a bore! As if one didn't get enough of friends in this world, without worrying them to knock out bad grammar from the next. Really, Mr. Wallace, I begin to think Mrs. Saracen must keep a lunatic asylum."
"Oh dear no," he answered, chuckling. "It is the sane people that are usually shut up."
"Certainly not the disagreeable people," retorted Lady Jim.
"Oh, if you go to those lengths, there would be no society," said Wallace, with a shrug.
The traveller's cynicism exactly suited Leah's humour at the moment, and she made him take her in to supper. Meanwhile, Askew, who had not seen Lady Jim arrive, was watching the grand entrance with a lowering face. He had called at Curzon Street, and thence had borne a message for Leah which he was anxious to deliver. Already he had been bored to distraction with faddists and their whims, and was seriously thinking of slipping away, when Mrs. Saracen bore down on him for the fourth time. Before he could object she had him by the arm, and confronted him with a severe-looking woman, pensive and solitary.