"Haven't I always doted on poetry since I was in love with Byron? But we can buy this young man's poetry for a guinea a volume--ten guineas for special editions at Christmas. I hear that Lady Blessington paid him a hundred pounds for three pages in last year's 'Book of Beauty.' I am glad he is in no danger of starving, and am quite willing to do my little share toward keeping him off the parish; but I prefer to enjoy his genius without being inflicted by the horrid tenement in which that genius has taken up its abode. Most undiscriminating faculty genius seems to be. Besides, I have no respect for a man who lets his life be ruined by a woman. Heavens, supposing we--we women----"
"You can't have everything, and a man who can write like Byam Warner----"
"Don't believe you ever read a line of him. What on earth has a leader of ton to do with poetry, unless, to be sure, to read up a bit before caging the lion for a dinner where everybody will bore the poor wretch to death by quoting his worst lines at him. As for Warner there is no question that he writes even better than before he went to the dogs, and that, to my mind, is proof that he holds his gifts in fief from the devil not from Almighty God----"
"Out upon you for a bigot. I should think you had lived in this world long enough----"
"Was there ever on this earth a more virtuous court than our young Queen's, Maria Hunsdon?"
"It is too good to last. And it is not so long ago----"
"Let us be permitted to forget the court of that iniquitous man"--Anne could see a large-veined hand wave in the direction of a long portrait of George IV.--"since we are mercifully and at last permitted so to do. Besides," changing the subject hastily, "I believe in predestination. You forget that although married these thousand years to an Englishman I am a Scot by birth----"
But Anne heard no more, although her ears were thirsty. Mrs. Nunn brought her amiable nothings to a close, and a moment later they were ascending the great staircase, where the pretty little Queen and her stately husband smiled alike on the just and the unjust.
Mrs. Nunn entered Anne's room before passing on to her own. As hostess to her young relative whose income would not have permitted her to visit this most fashionable of winter cities uninvited, it behooved her to see that the guest lacked no comfort. She was a selfish old woman, but she rarely forgot her manners.