She passed on, her dress, which had taxed the resources of the first modistes of the day, Rue de la Paix, trailing heedlessly over the priceless Aubusson. Aurora turned to find the Home Secretary at her elbow. Instantly she was all eagerness and vivacity.
"Will there be a division?" she asked.
"Dear lady," he replied, "qui vivra verra. The Anabaptists are up in arms, but——" He screwed his glass into his eye. "Had anything to eat?" he asked, as three of the footmen passed with a jewelled tray of Pêches Melba. "A Benvenuto Cellini, if I am not mistaken," he continued, tapping the tray with his ring, a unique Pompeian intaglio of Venus Anadyomene with the iynx. "The plates are fourteenth-century Venetian. The only other set is in the Vatican, you remember." He removed a drop of the Earl's champagne from his moustache. "Ah, I see Cantoforte's going to sing. Marvellous man! I remember him in Paris in the 'forties—the roaring 'forties, as poor Dizzy called them."
"He only plays when Royalty's present," a woman behind Aurora whispered, as the great artist broke into Palestrina's Andante Furioso. "They say he charges a thousand a minute."
A memory of the Lowmere cottages assailed Aurora. At last she saw her way clearly. Never had she so realised the possibilities of life.
"I will marry Cecil," she said to herself. "With his brains, a million a year, and the breeding to which only the highest circles can attain, we will regenerate England."
Men of Criccieth, on to glory!
See, this banner, fam'd in story,