“Is Lady Hartley here? How nice!” exclaimed Sophy, to whom Lady Hartley’s dress, manners, and way of thinking were a continual study.
Eve’s sister-in-law was Sophy’s ideal fine lady.
“Lady Hartley is always nice to me,” replied Sefton. “She never misses one of my afternoons if she is in town. She would sacrifice the Marlborough House garden-party for my tea and muffins.”
“Ah, but I dare say you contrive to make your tea-parties exceptional. This banjoist, now. Everybody is dying to hear him.”
They went down to tea, which was served in a little bit of a room at the back of the dining-room, from which it was divided only by a curtain of old Italian tapestry; a mere alcove in which eight or ten people made a mob. Flowers, ices, tea, chocolate, cakes, china, silver, damask embroidered by industrious Bavarians, everything was the choicest of its kind; and Mr. Sefton’s valet, with a footman and a smart parlour-maid, waited admirably. The squeeziness of the room made the entertainment all the more enjoyable. The banjoist stood in the centre of the crowd, talking in the true American style, with an incisive cleverness, and a clear metallic enunciation which made everybody else’s speech sound slipshod and slovenly.
People were amused and delighted. He told anecdotes, firing them off as fast as the crackers which demon boys explode on the pavement. The admiring circle forgot that his distinction was the banjo, and began to accept him as a wit. Mrs. Montford asked him to lunch; Lady Hartley booked him for her next cosy little dinner.
After tea they all trooped up the narrow staircase to the library which had to serve Mr. Sefton for a drawing-room. More people dropped in—neighbours, most of them, including Mervyn Hawberk and his wife—and the room filled before the banjoist began to play.
He played wonderfully, surprising the metallic instrument into melodious utterances. He sang and accompanied himself; he played in a concertante duet for banjo and piano—a delightful arrangement of the serenade from Don Giovanni, in which the banjo was now the melody, and now the accompaniment; he played on his banjo with a bow, as if it had been a violin, and produced an effect which was remarkable, although somewhat distressing. His banjo laughed; his banjo cried; and with those wailing notes there stole over the senses of his audience a dream of weary Ethiopians resting from their labours amidst the sunlit verdure beside some broad Virginian river.
Mr. Sefton’s visitors, who were chiefly feminine, flocked round the American, praising and descanting upon his talent. Little Tivett went about explaining, after his wont. He talked as if he had invented the banjoist.
“Did you really know him in America?” inquired Mrs. Montford, deluded by this little way of Mr. Tivett’s.