“Taken,” the duchess repeated, who disliked what she called the parfum d’Afrique of the “sooties,” and as though to intimidate Mrs. Mouth, she gave her a look that would have made many a Peeress in London quail.
Nevertheless in the stir that followed the song, chairs were forthcoming.
“From de complexion dat female hab, she look as doh she bin boiling bananas!” Mrs. Mouth commented comfortably, loud enough for the duchess to hear.
“Such a large congregation should su’tinly assist de fund!” Mr. Mouth resourcefully said, envisaging with interest the audience; it was not every day that one could feast the gaze on the noble baldness of the Archbishop, or on the subtle silhouette of Miss Maxine Bush, swathed like an idol in an Egyptian tissue woven with magical eyes.
“De woman in de window dah,” Mrs. Mouth remarked, indicating a dowager who had the hard, but resigned look of the Mother of six daughters, in immediate succession. “Hab a look, Prancing Nigger, ob your favourite statesman.”
“De immortal Wilberforce!”
“I s’poge it’s de whiskers,” Mrs. Mouth replied, ruffling gently her “Borgia” sleeves for the benefit of the Archbishop. Rumour had it he was fond of negresses, and that the black private secretary he employed was his own natural son, while some suspected indeed a less natural connexion.
But Madame Hatso (of Blue Brazil, the Argentine; those nights in Venezuela and Buenos Ayres, “bis” and “bravas”! How the public had roared) was curtseying right and left, and glancing round to address her daughters, Mrs. Mouth perceived with vexation that Edna had vanished.
In the garden he caught her to him: “Flower of the Sugar cane!”