"Laura's is a contralto: and that voice is very often out, you know," Pen said, bitterly. "I have heard a great deal of music in London," he continued. "I'm tired of those professional people—they sing too loud, or I have grown too old or too blasé. One grows old very soon in London, Miss Amory. And like all old fellows, I only care for the songs I heard in my youth."
"I like English music best. I don't care for foreign songs much. Get me some saddle of mutton," said Mr. Foker.
"I adore English ballads, of all things," said Miss Amory.
"Sing me one of the old songs after dinner, will you?" said Pen, with an imploring voice.
"Shall I sing you an English song after dinner?" asked the Sylphide, turning to Mr. Foker. "I will, if you will promise to come up soon," and she gave him a perfect broadside of her eyes.
"I'll come up after dinner, fast enough," he said, simply. "I don't care about much wine afterward—I take my whack at dinner—I mean my share, you know; and when I have had as much as I want I toddle up to tea. I'm a domestic character, Miss Amory—my habits are simple—and when I'm pleased I'm generally in a good humor, ain't I, Pen?—that jelly, if you please—not that one, the other with the cherries inside. How the doose do they get those cherries inside the jellies?" In this way the artless youth prattled on; and Miss Amory listened to him with inexhaustible good humor. When the ladies took their departure for the upper regions, Blanche made the two young men promise faithfully to quit the table soon, and departed with kind glances to each. She dropped her gloves on Foker's side of the table, and her handkerchief on Pen's. Each had some little attention paid to him: her politeness to Mr. Foker was perhaps a little more encouraging than her kindness to Arthur; but the benevolent little creature did her best to make both the gentlemen happy. Foker caught her last glance as she rushed out of the door; that bright look passed over Mr. Strong's broad white waistcoat, and shot straight at Harry Foker's. The door closed on the charmer: he sate down with a sigh, and swallowed a bumper of claret.
As the dinner at which Pen and his uncle took their places was not one of our grand parties, it had been served at a considerably earlier hour than those ceremonial banquets of the London season, which custom has ordained shall scarcely take place before nine o'clock; and, the company being small, and Miss Blanche anxious to betake herself to her piano in the drawing-room, giving constant hints to her mother to retreat—Lady Clavering made that signal very speedily, so that it was quite daylight yet when the ladies reached the upper apartments, from the flower-embroidered balconies of which they could command a view of the two parks, of the poor couples and children still sauntering in the one, and of the equipages of ladies and the horses of dandies passing through the arch of the other. The sun, in a word, had not set behind the elms of Kensington Gardens, and was still gilding the statue erected by the ladies of England in honor of his grace the Duke of Wellington, when Lady Clavering and her female friends left the gentlemen drinking wine.
The windows of the dining-room were opened to let in the fresh air, and afforded to the passers-by in the street a pleasant, or, perhaps, tantalizing view of six gentlemen in white waistcoats, with a quantity of decanters and a variety of fruits before them—little boys, as they passed and jumped up at the area-railings, and took a peep, said to one another, "Mi hi, Jim, shouldn't you like to be there, and have a cut of that there pine-apple?"—the horses and carriages of the nobility and gentry passed by, conveying them to Belgravian toilets: the policeman, with clamping feet, patrolled up and down before the mansion: the shades of evening began to fall: the gas-man came and lighted the lamps before Sir Francis's door: the butler entered the dining-room, and illuminated the antique Gothic chandelier over the antique carved oak dining-table: so that from outside the house you looked inward upon a night scene of feasting and wax candles; and from within you beheld a vision of a calm summer evening, and the wall of St. James's Park, and the sky above, in which a star or two was just beginning to twinkle.
Jeames, with folded legs, leaning against the door-pillar of his master's abode, looked forth musingly upon the latter tranquil sight; while a spectator, clinging to the railings, examined the former scene. Policeman X passing, gave his attention to neither, but fixed it upon the individual holding by the railings, and gazing into Sir Francis Clavering's dining-room, where Strong was laughing and talking away, making the conversation for the party.