“Hush!” said Katherine, as Jean de Reszké came on to the stage.
Margaret Massarene would have preferred a companion who would have worn big pearls, and had some color in her gown, and who would have talked all through “the music,” and would have made a sign with a flower or a fan to that handsome man down there to come up with Daddy Gwyllian and chat with them.
“Why didn’t my lord come up with ye?” she asked, as Daddy did appear.
“His lordship’s music mad, ma’am,” replied Daddy, who delighted in adopting her style; “never misses a season at Bayreuth, or a première of Saint-Saëns’s.”
“He’s never left a card, and ’tis rude,” said Mrs. Massarene. “We know all his sisters and brothers-in-law.”
“It is rude, madam,” assented Daddy, “but men don’t go often where they’re liable to meet their own families.”
“That’s a heathen sentiment,” said Mrs. Massarene severely.
“Only human nature,” said Daddy cheerfully. “Human nature is much the same, dear lady, whether heathen, Chinee, or Christian.”
“Ye don’t know much about the Chinese, sir,” said Mrs. Massarene. “They’re that wrapped up in their families that they’re always agoin’ to their graves; not like the folks here, who poke a dead person into the earth and give orders to a florist, and then thinks of ’em never no more. The Chinese pray to their dead; ’tis very touching, though it may be an offence to Deity.”
“I imagine, ma’am, their sensibilities are not blunted by death-duties,” said Daddy rather crossly; he disliked being corrected, and he disliked being taken au pied de la lettre: it is highly inconvenient to anyone who has the reputation of a humorist.