CHAPTER V.
MARMADUKE MEETS MRS. VYNER.
Everybody was at Dr. Whiston's, as the phrase goes, on one of his Saturday evenings. Dr. Whiston was a scientific man, whose great reputation was founded upon what his friends thought him capable of doing, rather than upon anything he had actually done. He was rich, and knew "everybody." His Saturday evenings formed an integral part of London society. They were an institution. No one who pretended to any acquaintance with the aristocracy of science, or with the scientific members of the aristocracy, could dispense with being invited to Dr. Whiston's. There were crowded lions of all countries, pretty women, bony women, elderly women, strong-minded women, and mathematical women; a sprinkling of noblemen, a bishop or two, many clergymen, barristers, and endless nobodies with bald foreheads and spectacles, all very profound in one or more "ologies," but cruelly stupid in everything else—abounding in "information," and alarmingly dull. Dr. Whiston himself was a man of varied knowledge, great original power, and a good talker. He passed from lions to doctors, from beauties to bores, with restless equanimity: a word for each, adapted to each; and every one was pleased.
The rooms were rapidly filling. The office of announcing the visitors had become a sinecure, for the very staircase was beginning to be invaded. Through the dense crowd of rustling dresses and formidable spectacles, adventurous persons on the search for friends made feeble way; but the majority stood still gazing at the lions, or endeavouring by uneasy fitful conversation to seem interested. Groups were formed in the crowd and about the doorways, in which something like animated conversation went on.
In the centre of the third room, standing by a table on which were ranged some new inventions that occupied the attention of the bald foreheads and bony women, stood a young and striking-looking man of eight and twenty. A melancholy listlessness overspread his swarthy face, and dimmed the fire of his large eyes. The careless grace of his attitude admirably displayed the fine proportions of his almost gigantic form, which was so striking as to triumph over the miserable angularity and meanness of our modern costume.
All the women, the instant they saw him, asked who he was. He interested everybody except the bald foreheads and the strong-minded women; but most he excited the curiosity of the girls dragged there by scientific papas or mathematical mamas. Who could he be? It was quite evident he was not an ologist. He was too gentlemanly for a lion; too fresh-looking for a student.
"My dear Mrs. Meredith Vyner, how d'ye do? Rose, my dear, you look charming; and you too, Blanche. And where's papa?"
"Talking to Professor Forbes in the first room," replied Mrs. Meredith Vyner, to her questioner: one of the inspectors of Dr. Whiston's inventions.
"I am trying to get a seat for my girls," said Mrs. Vyner peering about, as well as her diminutive form would allow in so crowded a room.
"I dare say you will find one in the next room. Oh, come in; perhaps you can tell us who is that handsome foreigner in there; nobody knows him, and I can't get at Dr. Whiston to ask."