Helmsley walked on with her. Would she come to tea? He had a big box of sweets for her. Wouldn't she have them?
Sybil woke up after a minute or two, grew feverishly gay with the gaiety which cloaks sorrow; was almost noisy, her cheeks glowing, her eyes glittering; took a dozen presents from Gore Helmsley: Venetian beads, sweets, charms, bought at fabulous prices.
"Poor chap, not to think your flower worth more than a tenner," Helmsley had said in his mocking voice.
The Great Charity Bazaar ran on wheels oiled by golden oil; the cash-boxes filled. Kindly Canon Bright walked round it dreaming of the debt which would be paid off his beloved hospital. Of instruments, of comforts for the tiny sufferers, of the increased room which they could make.
Lord Boredom, very immaculately dressed, was helping his mother, but he preferred taking a basket at a time round the hall than attending the stall. Once he came back with a demure-looking young lady whom the Duchess welcomed cordially as "My dear Miss Moover," making Sukey Ploddy sniff loudly.
But the sensation of the evening was when the Duchess was taken to the Café Chantant to see on the white curtain the words: "Miss Moover, by kind permission of the Magnificent Theatre."
The Duchess went in. Miss Moover's dance was audacious, her draperies shadow-like; she squirmed and twisted and bounded across the stage, displaying the exquisitely-formed limbs which made London flock to see her. She was agile, graceful, never exaggerated, full of the joy of youth.
From the Magnificent Theatre! The Duchess, breathing heavily, staggered out, her black dress rustling. "A dancer! A creature!"
"I shall never," she said, "countenance those Holbrooks again," and with stony eyes she cut Luke deliberately and sent for her son.
"It was unfortunate, my love," said Mr Holbrook, mildly, "the whole idea."