If something flickered across her face which was not there a moment before, it went as quickly as it came.
"No, I wasn't. Are you?"
"I, of course, don't expect you to be interested in the trivialities of my life, and I only mention it as a mere detail, but--the lady would very much like to know you. May she?"
"My dear Mr. Talfourd! hadn't you better put it the other way? May I know her? and when? May I call on her? or will she pay me the great compliment of coming to see me?"
"You're very kind. With your permission she will come and see you to-night."
"To-night? I'm at home--of course! Do you know I'd almost forgotten it. Bring her by all means. Tell her she's to come early, before the people, and that she's to stop late, after the crowd has gone."
Of such clay are we constituted. She had not the dimmest notion that in giving that very warm invitation she was hanging up over her own head a sword of Damocles, which, in this case, was suspended by something which was almost less than a single hair.
[CHAPTER XXI]
OUT OF THE BLUE
Mrs. Gregory Lamb's "At Home" was crowded by rather a nondescript gathering. The lady's hospitality was scarcely of the kind which discriminates. Had she set herself to pick and choose her acquaintances, their number might have been considerably less. She had learnt that the people she wished to know were apt not to be anxious to know her; rather the other way. She had to be content with the society of those who did wish to know her. Whether she was particularly desirous of the honour of their acquaintance was another matter altogether. As she wished to know somebody, using the word in the sense of a noun of multitude, she had to put up with what she could get. The result was a little confusing. This is not to say that there were no decent persons among the hordes which thronged her rooms: there were. Possibly the chief objection which could be urged against them was that, for the most part, they were hungry. Not only as regards the physical appetite; though a large proportion of them were quite willing to consume all the food they could obtain, and all the drink. They were hungry in every sense of the word. To use a significant euphemism, a very great majority of Mrs. Lamb's guests were "on the make". They all wanted something. Many wanted a great many things, and wanted them very badly. There was a generous fringe of what is called the "literary, musical and artistic world"--those excellent people who will go into every house into which they can gain admittance. Singers who are looking for people who will listen while they sing, and who will pay for listening. Authors in search of an "opening," victims of that quaint delusion that in order to achieve popularity it is necessary to keep one's person well in the public eye, as if it were not easier for the novelist who lives in the centre of Timbuctoo to gain, and keep, a circulation of a hundred thousand copies--that consummation so devoutly to be desired!--than for the pet of London drawing-rooms. Composers who wanted some one to hear their "works"; musicians who were apparently content to play on their various instruments, and keep on playing, whether they were listened to or not; artists who nourished more or less timid hope that, having provided them with food, and drink, and house-room, their hostess would purchase half a dozen of their "sketches," by way of providing a pleasant climax to their evening's entertainment; actors--and actresses!--who were willing to do anything, from the "splits" to "Hamlet," and to do it then and there; dramatists, who could have told you tales--and tried to!--of managerial incompetence which would have made your blood run cold, if they had not been so monotonously alike. These worthy folk, foredoomed to failure, were at Mrs. Lamb's in force.