"Aren't you coming?" asked Jack, dejectedly.
"Not to-night. I have been too long away from feminine society not to appreciate the novelty of an evening with ladies. You and Monty can have the table to yourselves, unless Mr. FitzJesse——"
"I never play," replied the gentle journalist; "but I rather like sitting in a billiard-room and listening to the conversation of the players. It is always so full of ideas."
Captain Vandeleur and Mr. Montagu went their way, and the other men repaired to the drawing-room, whence came the sound of the piano, and the music of a rich baritone, trolling out a popular air from the most fashionable opera-bouffe—that one piece which all Paris was bent upon hearing at the same moment, whereby seats in the little boulevard theatre were selling at a ridiculous premium.
De Cazalet was singing to Mrs. Tregonell's accompaniment—a patois song, with a refrain which would have been distinctly indecent, if the tails of all the words had not been clipped off, so as to reduce the language to mild idiocy.
"The kind of song one could fancy being fashionable in the decline of the Roman Empire," said FitzJesse, "when Apuleius was writing his 'Golden Ass,' don't you know."
After the song came a duet from "Traviata," in which Christabel sang with a dramatic power which Leonard never remembered to have heard from her before. The two voices harmonized admirably, and there were warm expressions of delight from the listeners.
"Very accomplished man, de Cazalet," said Colonel Blathwayt; "uncommonly useful in a country house—sings, and plays, and recites, and acts—rather puffy and short-winded in his elocution—if he were a horse one would call him a roarer—but always ready to amuse. Quite an acquisition."
"Who is he?" asked Leonard, looking glum. "My wife picked him up in Switzerland, I hear—that is to say, he seems to have made himself agreeable—or useful—to Mrs. Tregonell and Miss Bridgeman; and, in a moment of ill-advised hospitality, my wife asked him here. Is he received anywhere? Does anybody know anything about him?"
"He is received in a few houses—rich houses where the hostess goes in for amateur acting and tableaux vivants, don't you know; and people know a good deal about him—nothing actually to his detriment. The man was a full-blown adventurer when he had the good luck to get hold of a rich wife. He pays his way now, I believe; but the air of the adventurer hangs round him still. A man of Irish parentage—brought up in Jersey. What can you expect of him?"