"Gad, so it is," said Felix, who came up at this moment. "I don't care myself about 'Op. 84' and all that classical humbug. Give me something light—'Belle Helene,' with Emelie Melville, and all that sort of thing."
"Felix!" said his wife, in a stern tone.
"My dear," he answered recklessly, rendered bold by the champagne he had taken, "you observed—"
"Nothing particular," answered Mrs. Rolleston, glancing at him with a stony eye, "except that I consider Offenbach low."
"I don't," said Felix, sitting down to the piano, from which Madge had just risen, "and to prove he ain't, here goes."
He ran his fingers lightly over the keys, and dashed into a brilliant Offenbach galop, which had the effect of waking up the people in the drawing-room, who felt sleepy after dinner, and sent the blood tingling through their veins. When they were thoroughly roused, Felix, now that he had an appreciative audience, for he was by no means an individual who believed in wasting his sweetness on the desert air, prepared to amuse them.
"You haven't heard the last new song by Frosti, have you?" he asked, after he had brought his galop to a conclusion.
"Is that the composer of 'Inasmuch' and 'How so?'" asked Julia, clasping her hands. "I do love his music, and the words are so sweetly pretty."
"Infernally stupid, she means," whispered Peterson to Brian. "They've no more meaning in them than the titles."
"Sing us the new song, Felix," commanded his wife, and her obedient husband obeyed her.