And raking his fingers through his long locks, he stares defiantly around him. Mr. Rush-Marvelle is a little frightened. This is an eccentric personage--he must be soothed. Evidently he must be soothed!
"Yes, yes, I quite understand!" he says, nodding persuasively at the excited genius. "You are here to play. Exactly! Yes, yes! We shall all have the pleasure of hearing you presently. Delightful, I'm sure! You are the celebrated Herr--?"
"Machtenklinken," adds the pianist haughtily. "Ze celebrated Machtenklinken!"
"Yes--oh--er,--yes!" And Mr. Marvelle grapples desperately with this terrible name. "Oh--er--yes! I--er know you by reputation Herr--er--Machten--. Oh, er--yes! Pray excuse me for a moment!"
And thankfully catching the commanding eye of his wife, he scrambles hastily away from the piano and joins her. She is talking to the Van Clupps, and she wants him to take away Mr. Van Clupp, a white-headed, cunning-looking old man, for a little conversation, in order that she may be free to talk over certain naughty bits of scandal with Mrs. Van Clupp and Marcia.
To-night there is no place to sit down in all the grand extent of the Winsleigh drawing-rooms,--puffy old dowagers occupy the sofas, ottomans, and chairs, and the largest and most brilliant portion of the assemblage are standing, grinning into each other's faces with praiseworthy and polite pertinacity, and talking as rapidly as though their lives depended on how many words they could utter within the space of two minutes. Mrs. Rush-Marvelle, Mrs. Van Clupp and Marcia make their way slowly through the gabbling, pushing, smirking crowd till they form a part of the little coterie immediately round Lady Winsleigh, to whom, at the first opportunity, Mrs. Marvelle whispers-"Have they come?"
"The modern Paris and the new Helen?" laughs Lady Clara, with a shrug of her snowy shoulders. "No, not yet. Perhaps they won't turn up at all! Marcia dear, you look quite charming! Where is Lord Algy?"
"I guess he's not a thousand miles away!" returns Marcia, with a knowing twinkle of her dark eyes. "He'll hang round here presently! Why,--there's Mr. Lorimer worrying in at the doorway!"
"Worrying in" is scarcely the term to apply to the polite but determined manner in which George Lorimer coolly elbows a passage among the heaving bare shoulders, backs, fat arms, and long trains that seriously obstruct his passage, but after some trouble he succeeds in his efforts to reach his fair hostess, who receives him with rather a supercilious uplifting of her delicate eyebrows.