"There is one consolation," said Mrs. Toftrees in a hard voice; "the man must be realising what he has done. He was not too far gone for that!"
A new voice broke into the talk. It came from young Dickson Ingworth who had slid into the seat by Rita Wallace when Lothian went to the piano.
He blushed and stammered as he spoke, but there was a fine loyalty in his voice.
"It seems rather dreadful, Mrs. Amberley," he said, quite thinking that he was committing literary suicide as he did so. "It is dreadful of course. But Gilbert is such a fine chap when he's—when he's, all right! You can't think! And then, 'Surgit Amari'! Don't let's forget he wrote 'The Loom'—'Delicate Threads! O fairest in life's tissue,'" he quoted from the celebrated verse.
Then Rita Wallace spoke. "He is great," she said. "He is manifesting himself in his own way. That is all. To me, at any rate, the meeting with Mr. Lothian has been wonderful."
Mrs. Toftrees stared with undisguised dislike of such assertions on the part of a young girl.
But Mrs. Amberley, always kind and generous-hearted, had been pleased and touched by Dickson Ingworth's defence of his friend and master. She quite realised what the lad stood to lose by doing it, and what courage on his part it showed. And when Rita Wallace chimed in, Mrs. Amberley dismissed the whole occurrence from her mind as she beamed benevolently at the two young people on the sofa.
"Let's forget all about it," she said. "Mrs. Toftrees, help me to make my husband sing. He can only sing one song but he sings it excellently—'In cellar cool'—just the thing for a hot night. Joseph! do as I tell you!"
The little group of people rearranged themselves, as Muriel sat down at the piano to accompany her father.
"Le metier de poëte laisse a désirer," Toftrees murmured to his wife with a sneer which almost disguised the atrocious accent of his French.