"'With a heart,'" I began; and failed. Some ghost within had risen in rebellion, sealed my tongue. It seemed to my irrational heart that I had—how shall I say it?—betrayed my "stars," betrayed Fanny, that she and they and I could never be of the same far, quiet company again. So the "furious fancies" were never shared. The blood ran out of my cheek; I stuck fast; and shook my head.
At which quite a little tempest of applause spent itself against the walls of Lady Pollacke's drawing-room, an applause reinforced by that of a little round old gentleman, who, unnoticed, had entered the room by a farther door, and was now advancing to greet his guest. He was promptly presented to me on the beast-skin, and with the gentlest courtesy begged me to continue.
"'With a heart,' now; 'with a heart ...'" he prompted me, "a most important organ, though less in use nowadays than when I was a boy."
But it was in vain. Even if he had asked me only to whisper the rest of the poem into his long, pink ear, for his sake alone, I could not have done so. Moreover, Mr Crimble was still nodding his head at his mother in confirmation of his applause; and Miss Bullace was assuring me that mine was a poem entirely unknown to her, that, "with a few little excisions," it should be instantly enshrined in her repertory—"though perhaps a little bizarre!" and that if I made trial of Lady Bovill Porter's Bowershee method, my memory would never again play me false.
"The enunciation—am I not right, Sir Walter?—as distinct from the elocution—was flawless. And really, quite remarkable vocal power!"
Amidst these smiles and delights, and what with the brassy heat of the fire and the scent of the skin, I thought I should presently faint, and caught, as if at a straw, at the bust in the window.
"How lovely!" I cried, with pointing finger....
At that, silence fell, but only for a moment. Lady Pollacke managed to follow the unexpected allusion, and led me off for a closer inspection. In the hushed course of our progress thither I caught out of the distance two quavering words uttered as if in expostulation, "apparent intelligence." It was Mrs Crimble addressing Sir Walter Pollacke.
"Classical, you know," Lady Pollacke was sonorously informing me, as we stood together before the marble head. "Charming pose, don't you think? Though, as we see, only a fragment—one of Sir Walter's little hobbies."
I looked up at the serene, winged, sightless face, and a whisper sounded on and on in my mind in its mute presence, "I know more than Apollo; I know more than Apollo." How strange that this mere deaf-and-dumbness should seem more real, more human even, than anything or any one else in Lady Pollacke's elegant drawing-room. But self-possession was creeping back. "Who," I asked, "is he? And who sculped him?"