"There's never been anything heard like it. I tell you, he'll take London by storm."
"What I can't understand," said Miss Wix, her mouth pursed to a buttonhole, "is how it was you didn't know Lassalle directly he came in. Is he the only musical celebrity you aren't intimate with?"
Her nephew looked momentarily disconcerted.
"One doesn't know everybody," he said feebly; "Lassalle happened to be a man I hadn't met."
"What do you mean, Emily?" flared Mrs. Walford. "You don't imagine that Cæsar made the story up, I suppose?"
"'Mean'?" said Miss Wix with wonder. "'Make it up'? Why should he make it up? I said I 'didn't understand,' that is all. Quite a simple observation."
She rose, and seated herself stiffly on a distant couch. Mrs. Walford panted, and turned to Humphrey, who she was afraid had overheard.
"How very absurd," she said jerkily—"how very absurd of her to make such a remark! So liable to misconstruction. By the way, do you see anything of that Mr. Turkey—Turquand—what was he called?—now? Has he—er—er—any influence with the Press?"
"He knows a good many people of a kind. Why?"
"We shall be very pleased to see him," she said; "I liked him very much. He might dine with us one night, when there's nobody particular here.... I was thinking he might be useful to Cæsar. The Press can be so spiteful, can't it—so very spiteful? Of course, Cæsar will really be independent of criticism, but still——"