After looking at the prologue of the show, Lionel and Danford entered the house and ascended the steps of the once richly-carpeted staircase. At the top stood, or at least wabbled, a little woman, leaning heavily on a stick; at her side was Sam Yorick, the social guide, who had no rival as a mimic of Parliamentary members, but who could not hold a candle to Dick Danford. Mrs Webster had applied too late, and had to take Yorick and consider herself lucky to get him, for he was the last male guide available, and she strongly objected to having a woman guide.
The house was superbly decorated with large china vases in which magnolias, azaleas, and rhododendrons had been placed. The reception-rooms were filling rapidly; it was soon going to be a crush. Every description of plastic was there—the small, tall, large, thin; and one uniform shade prevailed, that of the flesh colour. As the rays of the burning sun entered obliquely, tracing long lines of golden light on the parqueted floor, it illuminated equally the phalanxes of refined feet and ankles, flat insteps and knobby toes.
“My lord, do you see there Mrs Archibald?”
“What, the vaporous Mrs Archibald? But where is the grace of the woman we used to call the sylph of Belgravia?”
“She lost her chiffon covering in the London storm, my lord.”
“Some fat old dowager malignantly said of her that she was draped in her breeding, so thin and undulating did she appear. But, has the breeding disappeared also in the torrential rain? for she looks as strong as a horse—see these thick ankles, short wrists, and red arms. I always objected to that sylph in cream gauze, for one never could get at her, she lived _de profil_ and one only could peep at her through side doors.”
“Who was her husband?” inquired the little artist.
“He was colonel of a crack regiment. His ideas were limited to two dogmas: the sense of military exclusiveness, and a profound horror of intellectual women. Like his wife he was well-bred.”
“Yes, my lord, but the Englishman has definite limits to his gentility; the brute, though dormant, lies ready to leap and bite when he is annoyed.”
“What are you, Danford, if not an Englishman?” Lionel smiled.
“Ah! satirists have neither sex nor nationality; but pray go on with your alembic of Colonel Archibald’s character.”