"No, I don't. No lightness, no agility; too heavy."
"There are holes in her voice," observed a stout musical critic standing beside him. "The middle register is all wrong."
"That's it," said the Admiral, snapping his jaws. "Holes in the voice and the—the what you may call it all wrong."
"I wonder what Adelaide Shiffney thinks?" said a small, dark, and shrewish-looking woman just behind them. "I must go and find out."
"My wife won't have her. I'm dead certain of that," said the Admiral.
"She ought to start again with De Reszke," said the musical critic, puffing out his fat cheeks and looking suddenly like a fish.
"Well, I must go down. It's getting late," said Mrs. Mansfield.
"It isn't a real soprano," said someone in a husky voice. "It's a forced-up mezzo."
Beneath them Millie Deans was standing by Mrs. Shiffney, who was saying:
"Charming! No, I haven't heard Crêpe de Chine. I don't care much for Fournier's music. He imitates the Russians. Such a pity! Are you really going back to-morrow? Good-bye, then! Now, Rades, be amiable! Give us Enigme." Mr. Brett had disappeared.