“No, no; I agree with Miss Maryon,” interrupted Lady Campion, but in a pretty eager way peculiar to her, which took away all shadow of offensiveness from the solecism. “Hertha Norreys, take her all together, is wonderful. I know no one the least, the very least like her.”
“You know her, then?” exclaimed Winifred, her eyes sparkling. “You know her privately?”
“Is it her real name?” added Celia, “I thought actors and singers always changed their names, or at least altered them somehow.”
“Not always—more often indeed not now-a-days, when they are of her class and position,” Lady Campion replied. “She is an ‘artist,’ so to say, of the modern school, retaining all the privileges that are hers by birth, except—and that ‘except,’ I fear, means a great deal—that she is, or would be if she did nothing, very poor.”
“If she did nothing?” repeated Winifred, musingly. “What a different,”—then she broke off hurriedly, asking again—“You know her? Privately—personally, I mean?”
Lady Campion nodded her head.
“I have that honour,” she said quaintly. “And an honour it is. But here we are at my own door. A thousand thanks, dear Mrs Balderson; but—now, won’t you do me another kindness? Come in and have tea with me, and I shall be able to tell our young friends a little more about my dear Hertha.”
Mrs Balderson hesitated. Her first impulse was always to do whatever she was asked to do, if such doing, that is to say, promised to give pleasure to the asker or any one else concerned. But, as often happened—for she had learned by experience—there came second thoughts.
“I fear I must not,” she said. “Mr Balderson and Eric are coming home early. Eric has some accompaniments he wants me to try over before dinner. But I should be very glad for you girls to stay half an hour or so with Lady Campion,” she went on, turning to the Maryons. “I cannot send the carriage back again, I fear, for I have had it out so much to-day, but your footman could see them into a hansom; they would be all right?” she added, reverting to Lady Campion.
“Oh, perfectly. I shall be delighted,” she replied; and the “delight,” without any polite figure of speech, shone in Winifred’s eyes, as she eagerly repeated the word “perfectly,” adding—“That will be charming. Celia and I want very much to go about a little alone in hansoms—to learn to manage for ourselves.”