“He never liked the boy,” disputed the hostess, warmly. “Why, he wouldn’t stand with him when he took his seat in the Lords. I am right, am I not, Mr. Hobhouse?”
“Yes, your ladyship. Lord Carlisle refused to introduce him. The Chancellor, even, haggled absurdly over his certificate of birth. Gordon came to Parliament with only one friend—an old tutor of his—entered alone, took the peer’s oath and left. He has never crossed the threshold since.”
“What a shame,” cried Lady Caroline, “that neither Annabel nor I have ever seen your paragon, Lady Jersey! Mr. Hobhouse, you or Mr. Sheridan must bring him to dinner to Melbourne House.”
“If he’ll come!” said Lamb, sotto voce, to the earl. “They say he hates to see women eat, because it destroys his illusions.”
Lady Jersey shrugged. “It is vastly in his favor that he still has any,” she retorted, rising. “Come, Caro, give us some music. We are growing too serious.”
Lady Caroline went to the piano, and let her hands wander over the keys. Wild, impatient of restraint, she was a perpetual kaleidoscope of changes. Now an unaccountably serious mood had captured her. The melody that fell from her fingers was a minor strain, and she began singing in a voice low, soft and caressing—with a feeling that Annabel Milbanke had never guessed lay within that agreeable, absurd, perplexing, mad-cap little being:
“Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh, give me back my heart!
Or since that has left my breast,
Keep it now and take the rest!