“How interesting men are to each other!” Lady Jersey exclaimed. “We women have actually been driven to the evening papers.”
The four men followed into the drawing-room, furnished in ruby and dull gold—a room perfect in its appointments, for its mistress added to her innate kindness of heart and tact a rare taste and selection. It showed in the Sèvres-topped tables, the tawny fire-screens, the candelabra of jasper and filigree gold, and in the splendid Gainsborough opposite the door.
The whole effect was a perfect setting for Lady Jersey. In it Lady Caroline Lamb appeared too exotic, too highly colored, too flamboyant—like a purple orchid in a dish of tea-roses; on the other hand, it was too warmly drawn for the absent stateliness of Annabel Milbanke, Lady Melbourne’s niece and guest for the season. The latter’s very posture, coldly fair like a sword on salute, seemed to chide the sparkle and glitter and color that radiated, a latent impetuosity, from Lady Caroline.
“I see by the Courier,” observed Lady Jersey, “that George Gordon is in London.”
“Speak of the devil—” sneered Lamb; and Sheridan said:
“That’s curious; we were just discussing him.”
Miss Milbanke’s even voice entered the conversation. “One hears everywhere of his famous Satire. You think well of it, don’t you, Mr. Sheridan?”
“My dear madam, for the honor of having written it, I would have welcomed all the enemies it has made its author.”
“What dreadful things the papers are always saying about him!” cried Lady Jersey, with a little shudder. “I hope his mother hasn’t seen them. I hear she lives almost a recluse at Newstead Abbey.”
“With due respect to the conventions,” Lamb interposed ironically, “there’s small love lost between them. His guardian used to say they quarrelled like cat and dog.”