That benevolent advice of Mrs. St. Aubyn's was not without its influence upon Leonard, lightly as he seemed to put aside the insinuation of evil. The matron's speech helped to strengthen his own doubts and fears. Other eyes than his had noted Christabel's manner of receiving the Baron's attentions—other people had been impressed by the change in her. The thing was not an evil of his own imagining. She was making herself the talk of his friends and acquaintance. There was scandal—foul suspicion in the very atmosphere she breathed. That mutual understanding, that face to face arraignment, which he felt must come sooner or later, could not be staved off much longer. The wife who defied him thus openly, making light of him under his own roof, must be brought to book.
"To-morrow she and I must come to terms," Leonard said to himself.
No one had much leisure for thought that evening. The drawing-room was a scene of babble and laughter, music, flirtation, frivolity, everybody seeming to be blest with that happy-go-lucky temperament which can extract mirth from the merest trifles. Jessie Bridgeman and Mr. Tregonell were the only lookers-on—the only two people who in Jack Vandeleur's favourite phrase were not "in it." Every one else was full of the private theatricals. The idea had only been mooted after luncheon, and now it seemed as if life could hardly have been bearable yesterday without this thrilling prospect. Colonel Blathwayt, who had been out shooting all the afternoon, entered vigorously into the discussion. He was an experienced amateur actor, had helped to swell the funds of half the charitable institutions of London and the provinces; so he at once assumed the function of stage manager.
"De Cazalet can act," he said. "I have seen him at South Kensington; but I don't think he knows the ropes as well as I do. You must let me manage the whole business for you; write to the London people for stage and scenery, lamps, costumes, wigs. And of course you will want me for Alphonse."
Little Monty had been suggested for Alphonse. He was fair-haired and effeminate, and had just that small namby-pamby air which would suit Pauline's faint-hearted lover; but nobody dared to say anything about him when Colonel Blathwayt made this generous offer.
"Will you really play Alphonse?" exclaimed Christabel, looking up from a volume of engravings, illustrating the costumes of the Directory and Empire, over which the young ladies of the party, notably Dopsy and Mopsy, had been giggling and ejaculating. "We should not have ventured to offer you a secondary part."
"You'll find it won't be a secondary character as I shall play it," answered the Colonel, calmly. "Alphonse will go better than any part in the piece. And now as to the costumes. Do you want to be picturesque, or do you want to be correct?"
"Picturesque by all means," cried Mopsy. "Dear Mrs. Tregonell would look too lovely in powder and patches."
"Like Boucher's Pompadour," said the Colonel. "Do you know I think, now fancy balls are the rage, the Louis Quinze costume is rather played out. Every ponderous matron fancies herself in powder and brocade. The powder is hired for the evening, and the brocade is easily convertible into a dinner gown," added the Colonel, who spent the greater part of his life among women, and prided himself upon knowing their ways. "For my part, I should like to see Mrs. Tregonell dressed like Madame Tallien."
"Undressed like Madame Tallien, you mean," said Captain Vandeleur: and thereupon followed a lively discussion as to the costume of the close of the last century as compared with the costume of to-day, which ended in somebody's assertion that the last years of a century are apt to expire in social and political convulsions, and that there was every promise of revolution as a wind-up for the present age.