“Yes, a new song composed for the occasion 'The Maudlin Malgamite'; like to hear it?”
“Well, I would rather wait. I think I hear a carriage at the door,” said Cornish, hastily.
Rupert Dalkyn had to be elected to the floor committee because he was Mrs. Courteville's brother, and Mrs. Courteville was the best chaperon in London. She was not only a widow, but her husband had been killed in rather painful circumstances.
“Poor dear,” the people said when she had done something perhaps a little unusual—“poor dear; you know her husband was killed.”
So the late Courteville, in his lone grave by the banks of the Ogowe River, watched over his wife's welfare, and made quite a nice place for her in London society.
Rupert himself had been intended for the Church, but had at Cambridge
developed such an exquisite sense of humour and so killing a power of
mimicry that no one of the dons was safe, and his friends told him that
he really mustn't. So he didn't. Since then Rupert had, to tell the
truth, done nothing. The exquisite sense of humour had also slightly
evaporated. People said, “Oh yes, very funny,” than which nothing is
more fatal to humour; and elderly ladies smiled a pinched smile at one
side of their lips. It is so difficult to see a joke through those
long-handled eye-glasses.
Cornish was quite right when he said that he had heard a carriage, for presently the door opened, and Mrs. Courteville came in. She was small and slight—“a girlish figure,” her maid told her—and well dressed. She was just at that age when she did not look it—at an age, moreover, when some women seem to combine a maximum of experience with a minimum of thought. But who are we to pick holes in our neighbours' garments? If any of us is quite sure that he is not doing more harm than good in the world, let him by all means throw stones at Mrs. Courteville.
Joan arrived next, accompanied by Lady Ferriby, who knew that if she stayed at home she would only have to give tea to a number of people towards whom she did not feel kindly enough disposed to reconcile herself to the expense. Joan glanced hastily from Mrs. Courteville to Tony. She had noticed that Mrs. Courteville always arrived early at the floor committee meetings when these were held at the Malgamite office or in Cornish's rooms. Joan wondered, while Mrs. Courteville was kissing her, whether the widow had come with her brother or before him.
“Has he not made the room look pretty with that mimosa?” asked Mrs. Courteville, vivaciously. People did not know how matters stood between Joan Ferriby and Tony Cornish, and always wanted to know. That is why Mrs. Courteville said “he” only when she drew Joan's attention to the flowers.
The meeting may best be described as lively. We belong, however, to an eminently practical generation, and some business was really transacted. The night for the Malgamite ball was fixed, and a list of stewards drawn up; and then the Hon. Rupert played the banjo.