The round of applause accorded Lady Mary on her entry was gradually dying away.
From her shelter Miss Sinquier could observe her, in opulent silhouette, perfectly at her ease.
She stood waiting for the last huzzas to subside with bowed head and folded hands—like some great sinner—looking reverently up through her eyelashes at the blue silk hangings of the Royal box.
By degrees all clatter ceased.
Approaching the footlights with a wistful smile, the favourite woman scanned the stalls.
“Now most of you here this afternoon,” she intimately began, “I will venture to say, never heard of Judy Jacock. I grant you, certainly, there’s nothing very singular in that; for her life, which was a strangely frail one, essentially was obscure. Judy herself was obscure.... And so that is why I say you can’t have ever heard of her!... Because she was totally unknown.... Ah, poor wee waif! Alas, she’s dead now. Judy’s among the angels ... and the beautiful little elegy which, with your consent, I intend forthwith to submit, is written around her, around little Judy, and around her old Father, her ‘Da’—James, who was a waiter. And while he was away waiting one day—he used to wipe the plates on the seat of his breeches!—his little Judy died. Ah, poor old James. Poor Sir James. But let the poet,” she broke off suddenly, confused, “take up the tale himself, or, rather—to be more specific!—herself. For the lines that follow, which are inédit, are from the seductive and charming pen of Lady Violet Sleepwell.”
Lady Mary coughed, winked archly an eye, and began quite carelessly as if it were Swinburne:
“I never knew James Jacock’s child....
I knew he had a child!
The daintiest little fairy that ever a father knew.