“That was Rossetti’s chief fault in his last years, and due, no doubt, to failing eyesight and too much chloral. Talking of throats always brings to my mind the great Styr’s. That is one of her assets. It really is as like a column of ivory as mere flesh can be. I have taken a box for the Wagner season, and hope that both of you will go with me to every performance.”
He hoped nothing of the sort, but he knew he was quite safe in expressing himself with propriety, and words never cost him anything.
“How wonderful five whole weeks of Wagner will be!” cried Mabel, with glittering eyes.
But Mrs. Cutting felt herself at liberty to be quite frank. “The first night; thank you very much. No doubt it will be a great sight. I understand the Prince has promised your mother to go, and of course that means the world. But I have no hesitation in admitting that Wagner bores me to extinction, no doubt because I cannot appreciate him. But I was raised on composers whose characters do not talk interminably in a sort of singing register, and I am too old to be converted. You do not mind my frankness, I hope?”
“Of course not. But Mabel must come, as she loves all music, and has heard nothing but The Mikado for months.”
“Occasionally,” said Mrs. Cutting, playfully. “But for a while yet we must be inflexible guardians.”
“Of course!” Ordham smiled into his wife’s eyes, but in truth was ill at ease and screwing up his courage. After all, this was not his house, and there was a point to be settled before Margarethe Styr arrived in London. He had delayed the inevitable discussion as long as possible, but now seemed as propitious a time as any; and although he did not suspect the cause, it had by no means escaped his attention that these people were at all times anxious to please him. He attributed it to the fact that he was English and they Americans, but thought it very nice of them.
He strolled over to the table again and lit another cigarette, came back to his deep chair, and turned his charming smile and large ingenuous eyes upon his mother-in-law.
“Did I ever mention that Countess Tann is quite a friend of mine?”
Mrs. Cutting also braced herself. She, too, had anticipated this crisis. “I think we spoke of her the first time we met again in London,” she answered vaguely. “But you are such a diplomat! I should hardly know the name of a single one of your London acquaintance if they did not come to the house. I don’t think you have ever mentioned any of your Continental friends. I doubt”—with a brilliant smile—“if your left hand is on bowing terms with your right.”