He asked, “Where?”
“I thought I saw someone—someone I knew—someone—Oh, I want to stop, to get out. It is stifling here.”
“There are so many people,” he replied. “I did not notice anyone. Was it a woman? We are nearly there now. Do not get out.”
“No—never mind. It was imagination. I thought I saw—it could not have been really.”
“Ah,” he said, “imagination is deceiving and becoming. You have grown most beautifully flushed. You are very good to look at, Miss Archer.”
“You must talk to Lady Blake,” said Launa. “I am tired.”
The room into which they were shown was dark, cool, and flower-scented. Lady Blake was dressed in black. She was a woman men loved for an hour, a dance, or a day. Sir Godfrey Blake had married her after a short acquaintance. Immediately afterwards he went into Parliament, and now sat out all the debates, and was seldom at home. Men pitied her, women shook their heads, while she loudly lamented a cold husband, and was consoled by other men.
“We have been waiting for you,” she said. “Herr Donau is ready to begin.”
She gloried in her riches, and she was musical, though in the days of her poverty she had not been. Shilling seats and deprivations did not suit her; but to be able to pay the most expensive successful pianist in London for a whole afternoon to play to her and one or two chosen ones, what a triumph! That was success. And if she did not enjoy the music she did derive great satisfaction from saying, “Donau played for us on Sunday; he played marvellously. Of course we paid him.”
“Miss Archer’s imagination has been causing her to see people—a person,” said Mr. Wainbridge, as he shook hands with Lady Blake.