"Oh, well," said Miss Waterston, smiling coyly at the toe of her slipper, "just a little. In fact," with a burst of confidence, "I've got a part in this year's production of the Sappho Club. Well, of course, I'm only in the chorus, but it's something to be even in the chorus of such a high-class Club. Don't you think so?"
"And what," asked Mr. Inverarity, "is the piece to be produced?"
"Oh! It's the Gondoliers, a kind of old-fashioned thing, of course. I would rather have done something more up to date, like The Chocolate Box Girl, it's lovely."
"It is," Mr. Inverarity agreed, "very tuney; but d'you know, of all these things my wee favourite's The Convent Girl."
"Fency!" said Miss Waterston, "I've never seen it. I think, don't you, that music's awfully inspiring? When I hear good music I just feel as if I could—as if I—well, you know what I mean."
"I've just the same feeling myself, Miss Waterston," Mr. Inverarity assured her—"something like what's expressed in the words 'Had I the wings of a dove I would flee,' eh? Is that it?" and Mr. Inverarity nudged Miss Waterston with his elbow.
The room was getting very hot, Mr. Thomson in his nervousness having inadvertently heaped the fire with coals.
A very small man recited "Lasca" on the hearth-rug, and melted visibly between heat and emotion.
"I say," said Mr. Stevenson to Miss Gertrude Simpson, "he looks like Casabianca. By the way, was Casabianca the name of the boy on the ship?"
"I couldn't say, I'm sure," she replied, looking profoundly uninterested.