The Duchess, who had observed these noble raptures with satisfaction, looked narrowly at Mrs. Verulam.
"Is Mr. Van Adam to be much longer with you?" she asked.
"I am afraid not in London," said Mrs. Verulam. "But we may go over to Paris together in a week or two."
"Indeed!" said her Grace, flushing with respectable fury—"indeed!"
"Or on the Continent," continued Mrs. Verulam, with pretty malice, as she thought of the faithful Marriner's midnight remarks.
Her Grace heaved, and Mr. Rodney woke suddenly from his dreams, and spilt some tea over his boots. Was Mrs. Verulam mad? For a moment he dreaded that the Duchess would lose her head and make a scene, for the famous features became enlarged with passion. Her Grace's form was agitated like an enormous flower in a strong wind, and she opened her capacious mouth as if to allow egress to a stream of eloquent remarks of an opprobrious nature.
But, unfortunately, her curses were lost to an enquiring world, for at this moment Mr. Bush and Mr. Ingerstall emerged from the palace and came towards the group on the lawn with a demeanour which attracted the attention of all. The artist looked wildly hilarious. His enormous spectacles were dimmed with tears of laughter, and his frantic bow-tie streamed abroad in a manner suggestive of unbridled licence. Mr. Bush's gigantic countenance, on the other hand, was marked by its usual solid gravity. But the hat from Windsor perched on the side of his head like a wounded bird, battered and forlorn; his clothes seemed to have been hurriedly put on during the active progress of an earthquake; one or two buttons had burst off his boots, and he carried in his hands what appeared at a distance to be a large number of cannon-balls, but as he approached resolved themselves into various cocoanuts, such as grow so plentifully in all places where the sinews of Great Britain assemble to have a good time. All eyes were now riveted upon these nuts, two or three of which Mr. Bush let drop on Mr. Rodney's toes as he gained the tea-table. Miss Bindler was the first to break the awed silence which reigned beneath the cedar-tree.
"Been betting in kind?" she said to Mr. Bush. "Taking the odds in fruit? Not a bad idea, if you're keen on it. I shouldn't mind having a bit on Kiss Me to-morrow—say in gooseberries."
Mr. Bush sat down in silence in a wicker chair and nursed his nuts, while Mr. Rodney, with an approach to violence, kicked away that portion of the winnings which had bruised his delicate feet.
"I would give one year—yes, one whole year—of my caricaturing life," shrieked Mr. Ingerstall, "to take Mr. Bush round the side-shows of Montmartre. How he would appreciate their subtle beauty! He has the artistic sense; he understands the exquisite poetry of vulgarity, the inwardness of the cocoanut-shy, the extraordinary elements of the picturesque which appear in the staring face of Madame Aunt Sally, open-mouthed to receive the provender shot at her by Hodge and Harriet. He knows well the bizarre and beautiful effect upon the nervous system of that strange combination of the arts of music and motion—the roundabout! He——"