Lord Mallow did not know anything about the French poet and his royal mistress, but he contrived to look as if he did. And, before he ran away to the House presently, he gave Lady Mabel's hand a tender little pressure which she accepted in all good faith as a sign manual of the compact between them.
They met in the Row next morning, and Lord Mallow asked—as earnestly as if the answer involved vital issues—when he might be permitted to hear those interesting poems.
"Whenever you can spare time to listen," answered Lady Mabel, more flattered by his earnestness than by all the adulatory nigar-plums which had been showered upon her since her début. "If you have nothing better to do this afternoon——"
"Could I have anything better to do?"
"We won't enter upon so wide a question," said Lady Mabel, laughing prettily. "If committee-rooms and public affairs can spare you for an hour or two, come to tea with mamma at five. I'll get her to deny herself to all the rest of the world, and we can have an undisturbed hour in which you can deal severely with my poor little efforts."
Thus it happened that, in the sweet spring weather, while Roderick was on the stand at Epsom, watching the City and Suburban winner pursue his meteor course along the close-cropped sward, Lord Mallow was sitting at ease in a flowery fauteuil in the Queen Anne morning-room at Kensington, sipping orange-scented tea out of eggshell porcelain, and listening to Lady Mabel's dulcet accents, as she somewhat monotonously and inexpressively rehearsed "The Tragedy of a Sceptic Soul."
The poem was long, and, sooth to say, passing dreary; and, much as he admired the Duke's daughter, there were moments when Lord Mallow felt his eyelids drooping, and heard a buzzing, as of summer insects, in his ears.
There was no point of interest in all this rhythmical meandering whereon the hapless young nobleman could fix his attention. Another minute and his sceptic soul would be wandering at ease in the flowery fields of sleep. He pulled himself together with an effort, just as the eggshell cup and saucer were slipping from his relaxing grasp. He asked the Duchess for another cup of that delicious tea. He gazed resolutely at the fair-faced maiden, whose rosy lips moved graciously, discoursing shallowest platitudes clothed in erudite polysyllables, and then at the first pause—when Lady Mabel laid down her velvet-bound volume, and looked timidly upward for his opinion—Lord Mallow poured forth a torrent of eloquence, such as he always had in stock, and praised "The Sceptic Soul" as no poem and no poet had ever been praised before, save by Hibernian critic.
The richness, the melody, the depth, colour, brilliance, tone, variety, far-reaching thought, &c., &c., &c.
He was so grateful to Providence for having escaped falling asleep that he could have gone on for ever in this strain. But if anyone had asked Lord Mallow what "The Tragedy of a Sceptic Soul" was about, Lord Mallow would have been spun.