And Chloe went off wondering greatly at her friend's enthusiasm for the gentleman from Bungay. She herself could at present see nothing in him but a mountain of humanity, with that face, head, beard, and expression already described as appearing to Mrs. Verulam in the imaginary mirror of the cotillon of her fancy. Nor could his manner—essentially truthful as no doubt it was—be called precisely pleasing. Chloe picked a rose or two and lost herself in wonder. Meanwhile, Mrs. Verulam wandered ecstatically about the palace. Mr. Harrison was busy with the Bun Emperor at the telephone. Mr. Rodney was plunged once more in terrible meditation in the purple drawing-room, and Mr. Bush was enjoying to the utmost his good lay down on one of the Empress's largest spring-mattresses. He woke soon after the arrival of the rest of the party, and strolled heavily forth alone into the grounds to take the air, which had not circulated very freely beneath the quilt with which his head had been completely covered during the last hour and a half.
Meanwhile the baronial hall looked fuller of people than it had ever looked before. Tea was going on, but Mrs. Verulam had declined to allow Mr. Bush to be disturbed.
"He will come in his own good time," she said, "I don't wish to bother him. He is accustomed to perfect liberty."
She addressed the company generally. The Duke of Southborough, who resembled an unusually tall pantaloon in appearance, but was not entirely unlike a clown in manner, said in reply:
"Ah, then, I suppose he's a bachelor."
"Oh, of course," said Mrs. Verulam, with a secret glance at Chloe.
"Poor chap! poor chap!" said the Duke, with his funny demeanour of an actor being remarkably successful in his part. "What a sad business this anti-matrimonial bias that is growing up in the present generation of Englishmen is! Eh, Lady Drake?"
Lady Drake, who was the human equivalent of the most perfect sort of acid-drop that the power of the sugar-plum manufacturer has yet produced, shook her head, on which the hair reposed in bandeaux.
"Men are more selfish than the lower animals, I fear," she said, sweetening her tea with some modern preparation which she always carried about with her in a good-sized phial.