"Well," said Mr. Anstruther, the composer, "I don't know. I think they might be reduced. Anyway," dropping his voice, and bending over her ladyship, "our little friend here, whom Mr. Hanbury brought in, manages to hold his own, and more than hold his own, with less of such relics of barbarism than most of us."
"I was just saying to Sir Julius when you, Mr. Anstruther, came up, that I consider the stranger the most remarkable man I ever met in this house, and quite capable of undertaking and carrying out any social revolution, even to the discrediting of soap. If you have been introduced bring him to me."
"I haven't, unfortunately, but I'll tell Hanbury, who looks as black as thunder, that you would like to speak to him."
"I have scarcely seen Miss Ashton to-day. Let us go to them. That is the simplest way," said Lady Forcar, rising and moving towards the place where Dora, Hanbury, and Leigh stood.
When Leigh finished eating the bread-and-butter and drinking the tiny cup of tea, he said: "You wish, Miss Ashton, to know in what way I have been lucky to-day?"
She looked in perplexity at Hanbury, and then at the dwarf. She had no doubt he had alluded to her when he spoke of having found a model for the Pallas-Athena. An average man accustomed to ordinary social observances would not pursue that kind of flattery any further, but could this man be depended on? He certainly was not an ordinary man, and as certainly he was not accustomed to ordinary social observances. If he pursued that subject it would be embarrassing. It was quite plain John was in very bad humour. He deserved to be punished for his pusillanimous selfishness to-day, but there were limits beyond which punishment ought not to be pressed. She would forgive John now and try to make the best of the situation. She felt convinced that John would not have brought this man here except under great pressure. Let him be absolved from further penalties.
She said pleasantly: "One always likes to hear of good fortune coming to those in whom one is interested." Nothing could be more bald, or commonplace, or trite, yet in the heart of Leigh the words made joyous riot. She had implied, even if she did not mean her implication, that she took an interest in him.
"I was speaking a moment ago about the figures of time in my clock. I had the honour of telling Mrs. Ashton that there would be thousands of them, and that they would be modelled, not chiefly or at all for the display of mechanism, but in the first place as works of art; to these works of art mechanism would be adapted later."
"Which will make your clock the only one of the kind in the world," said she, much relieved to find no pointed reference to herself.
"Precisely. But I did not do myself the honour of telling Mrs. Ashton of what material the figures were to be composed."