Sefton turned at the sound of Vansittart’s voice. They had met a good many times since Easter, and in a good many houses, for it was one of Sefton’s attributes to be seen everywhere; but Vansittart had not expected to find him at a comparatively unknown painter’s tea-party.
“Delightful picture, ain’t it?” he asked carelessly. “Full of truth and feeling. How is Miss Marchant to-day? I thought she looked a little pale and fagged at Lady Heavyside’s last night, as if her first season were taking it out of her.”
“I don’t think my sister would let her do too much.” They had drifted towards the tea-table, and the crowd had stranded them in a corner, where they could talk at their ease. “I did not know you were by way of being an art critic.”
“I am by way of being everything. I give myself up to sport—body and bones—all the winter. I let my poor little intellect hibernate from the first of September till I have been at the killing of a May fox; and then I turn my back upon rusticity, put on my frock-coat and cylinder hat, and see as much as I can of the world of art and letters. To that end I have chosen this street for my summer habitation.”
“You live here—in Tite Street?”
“Is that so surprising? Tite Street is not a despicable locality. We consider ourselves rather smart.”
“I should have looked for you nearer the clubs.”
“I am by no means devoted to the clubs. I like my own nest and my own newspapers. Is not this charming?”
He turned to admire a cabinet picture on a draped easel—“Esmeralda and the Captain of the Guard;” one of those pictures which Vansittart would have preferred Eve Marchant not to see, but over which æsthetic maids and matrons were expatiating rapturously.
Vansittart did not stop to take tea, meaning to gratify Lisa by allowing her to entertain him with the mild infusion she called by that name. He spoke to the two or three people he knew, praised the pictures in very good French to the artist, who knew no English, and slipped out of the sultry room, redolent of violets and tea-cake, into the fresh air blowing up the river from the woods and pastures of Bucks and Berks.