It was a curious party, typical of the house, and of a certain stratum of London. When, every now and then, in the pauses of their own conversation, Elsmere caught something of the chatter going on at the other end of the table, or when the party became fused into one for a while under the genial influence of a good story or the exhilaration of a personal skirmish, the whole scene—the dainty oval room, the lights, the servants, the exquisite fruit and flowers, the gleaming silver, the tapestried walls—would seem to him for an instant like a mirage, a dream, yet with something glittering and arid about it which a dream never has.
The hard self-confidence of these people—did it belong to the same world as that humbling, that heavenly self-abandonment which had shone on him that afternoon from Charles Richards's begrimed and blood-stained face? 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,' he said to himself once with an inward groan. 'Why am I here? Why am I not at home with Catherine?'
But Madame de Netteville was pleasant to him. He had never seen her so womanly, never felt more grateful for her delicate social skill. As she talked to him, or to the Frenchman, of literature, or politics, or famous folk, flashing her beautiful eyes from one to the other, Sir John Headlam would, every now and then, turn his odd puckered face observantly towards the farther end of the table.
'By Jove!' he said afterwards to Wharncliffe as they walked away from the door together, 'she was inimitable to-night; she has more rôles than Desforêts!' Sir John and his hostess were very old friends.
Upstairs smoking began, Lady Aubrey and Madame de Netteville joining in. M. de Quérouelle, having talked the best of his répertoire at dinner, was now inclined for amusement, and had discovered that Lady Aubrey could amuse him, and was, moreover, une belle personne. Madame de Netteville was obliged to give some time to Lord Rupert. The other men stood chatting politics and the latest news, till Robert, conscious of a complete failure of social energy, began to look at his watch. Instantly Madame de Netteville glided up to him.
'Mr. Elsmere, you have talked no business to me, and I must know how my affairs in Elgood Street are getting on. Come into my little writing-room.' And she led him into a tiny panelled room at the far end of the drawing-room and shut off from it by a heavy curtain, which she now left half-drawn.
'The latest?' said Fred Wharncliffe to Lady Aubrey, raising his eyebrows with the slightest motion of the head towards the writing-room.
'I suppose so,' she said indifferently; 'she is East-Ending for a change. We all do it nowadays. It is like Dizzy's young man who "liked bad wine, he was so bored with good."'
Meanwhile, Madame de Netteville was leaning against the open window of the fantastic little room, with Robert beside her.