"You had much better go in there and put a stop to the mischief which, if I am not mistaken, is being largely added to to-night." This with a significant glance towards the music-room.
"I am powerless," Goswyn observed, dryly. He conducted the ladies to the anteroom, where a regiment of lackeys were in waiting. After attending to the old ladies, he had the pleasure of helping Erika to put on her cloak. He had a strange sensation as he wrapped it about the girl's slender figure. The white fur with which it was trimmed was wonderfully becoming to her.
"A heather blossom in the snow," the vain grandmother remarked, with a glance in his direction, whereby she discovered that there was no necessity for calling his attention to her grand-daughter's charms. This discovery rejoiced her. She bade him good-night with unusual cordiality, smiling to herself as she descended the brilliantly-lighted staircase.
Meanwhile, Goswyn had returned to the music-room. His sister-in-law was still standing by the piano, singing. G---- was accompanying her, good-humouredly ready to burden his soul with any musical misdeed that could give pleasure to his audience, a readiness arising partly from the prosaic view which he took of his "trade," as he was wont to call his music. Quite a little throng of ladies had already rustled out of the room.
Countess Brock was beginning to be uneasy. The effect of the Princess's performance vividly reminded her of the effect which the young actor's reading had had upon her guests.
Goswyn glanced at his brother. Otto von Sydow was a picture of distress: he looked as if threatened with an apoplectic stroke; he alternately clinched and opened his gloved hands, looked uneasily at the men whom he saw laughing, and at the women whom he saw leaving the room; he stood first on one foot and then on the other; but he allowed his wife to go on singing.
The first verses of the music-hall song she had now selected were simply coarse. Goswyn comforted himself with thinking that perhaps she would not sing the last. He had underrated his sister-in-law's temerity. She went on. Sight and hearing seemed to fail him.
Suddenly there came a loud burst of applause. A few of the men present, in pity for the unhappy husband, had thus drowned the improprieties of the last verse.
Princess Dorothea looked round,--saw men laughing significantly and women hurriedly leaving the room. She grew pale, and there came into her Spanish face a look of indescribable hardness. She was about to continue, when her hostess approached her.
"Charming!" exclaimed the 'fairy,'--"charming, my dear Thea, but you must not exert yourself further: you are a little hoarse."