‘Thank you, puss,’ said Madame, tapping her cheek; ‘but I am nervous,’ she said, rapidly; ‘at night especially. Sometimes I have to get Selina to come into my room and stay all night.’
‘Madame Midas nervous,’ thought Vandeloup to himself; ‘then I can guess the reason; she is afraid of her husband coming back to her.’
Just at this moment the servant announced Mr Calton, and he entered, with his sharp, incisive face, looking clever and keen.
‘I must apologise for being late, Mrs Villiers,’ he said, shaking hands with his hostess; ‘but business, you know, the pleasure of business.’
‘Now,’ said Madame, quickly, ‘I hope you have come to the business of pleasure.’
‘Very epigrammatic, my dear lady,’ said Calton, in his high, clear voice; ‘pray introduce me.’
Madame did so, and they all went to dinner, Madame with Calton and Kitty following with Vandeloup.
‘This,’ observed Calton, when they were all seated at the dinner table, ‘is the perfection of dining; for we are four, and the guests, according to an epicure, should never be less than the Graces nor greater than the Muses.’
And a very merry little dinner it was. All four were clever talkers, and Vandeloup and Calton being pitted against one another, excelled themselves; witty remarks, satirical sayings, and well-told stories were constantly coming from their lips, and they told their stories as their own and did not father them on Sydney Smith.
‘If Sydney Smith was alive,’ said Calton, in reference to this, ‘he would be astonished at the number of stories he did not tell.’