'First, that you will come to breakfast in Park Lane with Lady Kirkbank next Wednesday morning. I say Wednesday because that will give me time to ask some nice people to meet you; secondly, that you will honour me by occupying my box at the Lyceum some evening next week; and thirdly, that you will allow me to drive you down to the Orleans for supper after the play. The drive only takes an hour, and the moonlight nights are delicious at this time of the year.'
'I am in Lady Kirkbank's hands,' answered Lesbia, laughing. 'I am her goods, her chattels; she takes me wherever she likes.'
'But would you refuse to do me this honour if you were a free agent?'
'I can't tell. I hardly know what it is to be a free agent. At Grasmere I did whatever my grandmother told me; in London I obey Lady Kirkbank. I was transferred from one master to another. Why should we breakfast in Park Lane instead of in Arlington Street? What is the use of crossing Piccadilly to eat our breakfast?'
This was a cool-headed style of treatment to which Mr. Smithson was not accustomed, and which charmed him accordingly. Young women usually threw themselves at his head, as it were; but here was a girl who talked to him as indifferently as if he were a tradesman offering his wares.
'What a dreadfully practical person you are!' he exclaimed. 'What is the use of crossing Piccadilly? Well, in the first place, you will make me ineffably happy. But perhaps that doesn't count. In the second place, I shall be able to show you some rather good pictures of the French school—'
'I hate the French school!' interjected Lesbia. 'Tricky, flashy, chalky, shallow, smelling of the footlights and the studio.'
'Well, sink the pictures. You will meet some very charming people, belonging to that artist world which is not to be met everywhere.'
'I will go to Park Lane to meet your people, if Lady Kirkbank likes to take me,' said Lesbia; and with this answer Mr. Smithson was bound to be content.
'My pet, if you had made it the study of your life how to treat that man you could not do it better,' said Lady Kirkbank, when they were driving along the dusty road between dusty hedges and dusty trees, past that last remnant of country which was daily being debased into London. 'Upon my word, Lesbia, I begin to think you must be a genius.'