CHAPTER XIII
JANE’S AFTERNOON OUT
The Green Chartreuse was able to break its journey at Romano’s, as it passed that home of wassail en route to Bedford Gardens. And having done so, it was able to answer back a bit, but only in a very minor key just now, my lords and gentlemen.
The dear girl herself opened the door to Mr. Philip; it was Jane’s afternoon out. Wasn’t Mary very tired after the two performances yesterday? Not a bit. But wasn’t he a bit below the weather? No? She thought he looked so, rather. Merely because he had been lunching with his people, was it? Very wrong to make a joke of such a filial action, particularly as Grosvenor Square on a Sunday is thought to be the home of the serious.
Granny was sitting very upright in the cozy corner, and looking very stately in her smartest cap with lace on it, that had been worn by Siddons. An approximation of the grand manner when she shook hands. The weather was not cold, perhaps, for the season of the year; but when one was turned four-and-eighty, one’s vitality was perhaps a little less than formerly.
Miss Mary brought in the tea, looking frightfully demure.
Grandmamma herself had a preference for Chayney tea. She hoped Mr. Shelmerdine did not object to Chayney tea; if he did, there was whisky and soda which some gentlemen preferred. John Peter Kendall always preferred it; likewise John his father; and she had heard that this preference was shared by Edward Bean, who was her godpapa—and the silver mug he gave her at her christening was upon the chiffonnier.
Had Mr. Shelmerdine heard that the Lane was going to double Mary’s salary, and desired her to sign a contract for a term of five years?
“Two hundred a week, Mr. Shelmerdine. A fabulous sum. Why, I don’t think that Garrick—”
“Not a penny more than she deserves, ma’am,” averred the heir to the barony.
“Mr. Shelmerdine, it is enough to make Edward Bean turn in his grave. A preposterous sum for a girl of very ordinary ability, without any true histrionic genius. Why, I don’t think that Siddons in the heyday of her power—”