Lady Orange always had a box for the big functions at the Albert Hall.
It was chic, it was right and it was convenient. It gave her an
opportunity of entertaining distinguished foreigners _de passage_ in
London in a manner that was both original and expensive.
Lady Orange prided herself on her internationalism, and delighted to
gather distinguished foreigners about her; members and attachés of
minor embassies invariably graced her dinner parties. She often referred
to her attainments as "bi-lingual," and in effect she spoke French with
a perfect Geneva accent. She thought it _bon ton_ to appear bored at
every social function except those which took place at her house in
Belgrave Square, and now when a procession made up of bedizened unities
marched in double file past her box she remarked languidly:
"I think they show a singular lack of imagination. One would have
thought Chelsea artists would have invented something unique,
picturesque for themselves."
"They only thought of comfort, perhaps. But it is they who gave the
impetus to the imagination of others. Not?"
The man who sat next to Lady Orange spoke with certain gestures of hands
and arms that would have proclaimed him a foreigner even apart from his
appearance--the somewhat wide expanse of white waistcoat, the
ultra-smart cut of his evening clothes, the diamond ring on his finger.
He had large, mellow dark eyes, which he used with great effect when he
spoke to women, and full lips half-concealed under a heavy black
moustache. He had a soft, rich voice, and spoke English with that
peculiar intonation which is neither Italian nor Slav, but has the
somewhat unpleasant characteristics of both; and he had large,
well-shaped, podgy hands all covered with a soft dark down that extended
almost to his finger-tips.
Lady Orange, who had pale, round eyes and arched eyebrows that lent to
her face a perpetual look of surprise, gazed intelligently about her.
"Ah, _oui!_" she sighed vaguely. "_Vous avez raison!_"
She would have liked to continue the conversation in French, but General
Naniescu was equally determined to speak English.
As Lady Orange was going to Bucharest shortly, and desired an
introduction to august personages there, she thought it best to humour
the general's whim.
"How well you express yourself in our barbarous tongue, M. le
Général," she said kindly.
"Ah, madame," the general replied, with an expressive shrug, "we in our
country are at such disadvantage in the social life of great cities like
London and Paris, that we must strive to win our way by mastering the
intricacies of language, so as to enable us to converse freely with the
intelligentsia of the West who honour us by their gracious acceptance."
"You are a born courtier, Monsieur le Général," Lady Orange rejoined
with a gracious smile. "Is he not, _ma chère?_" And with the edge of
her large feather fan she tapped the knees of an elderly lady who sat
the other side of M. le Général.
"Oh, Mademoiselle Fairfax was not listening to my foolish remarks,"
General Naniescu said, turning the battery of his mellow eyes on the
somewhat frumpish old maid.
"No," Miss Fairfax admitted drily. "Monsieur de Kervoisin here on my
left was busy trying to convert me to the dullness of Marcel Proust. He
is not succeeding."
"Ah!" exclaimed Naniescu suavely, "you English ladies! You are so
intellectual and so deliciously obstinate. So proud of your glorious
literature that even the French modernists appear poor in your sight."
"There, you see, _ma chère_," Lady Orange put in with her habitual
vagueness, "always the courtier."
"How can one help being a courtier, dear lady, when for hours one is
thrown in a veritable whirlpool of beauty, brilliance and wit? Look at
this dazzling throng before us," the general went on, with a fine sweep
of his arm. "The eyes are nearly blinded with its magnificence. Is it
not so, my dear Kervoisin?"
This last remark he made in French, for M. de Kervoisin spoke not a word
of English. He was a small, spare man, with thin grey beard neatly
trimmed into a point, and thin grey hair carefully arranged so as to
conceal the beginnings of baldness. Around his deep-set grey eyes there
was a network of wrinkles; they were shrewd, piercing eyes, with little,
if any, softness in them. M. de Kervoisin, whose name proclaimed him a
native of Brittany, was financial adviser to a multiplicity of small,
newly created states, all of whom were under the tutelage of France. His
manner was quiet and self-effacing when social or political questions
were on the tapis, and he only appeared to warm up when literature or
the arts were being discussed. He fancied himself as a Mæcenas rather
than a financier. Marcel Proust was his hobby for the moment, because
above all things he prided himself on modernity, and on his desire to
keep abreast of every literary and artistic movement that had risen in
the one country that he deemed of intellectual importance, namely his
own.
For the moment he felt vaguely irritated because Miss Fairfax--a
seemingly unpretentious and socially unimportant elderly female--refused
to admit that there was not a single modern English prose writer that
could compare with Proust. To the general's direct challenge he only
replied drily.
"Very brilliant indeed, my good Naniescu; but, you know, I have seen so
much in my day that sights like these have no longer the power to stir
me."
"I am sorry for you," Miss Fairfax retorted with old-maidish bluntness.
"I have been about the world a good deal myself, but I find it always a
pleasure to look at pretty people. Look at Rosemary Fowkes now," she
went on, addressing no one in particular, "did you ever in all your life
see anything so beautiful?"
She made lively little gestures of greeting, and pointed to a couple on
the dancing-floor below. Lady Orange turned her perpetually surprised
gaze in that direction, and General Naniescu uttered an exaggerated cry
of admiration. Even M. de Kervoisin appeared interested.
"Who is the lady?" he asked.
"She is Rosemary Fowkes," Miss Fairfax said, "one of the most
distinguished----"
"Ah! I entreat you, mademoiselle, tell us no more," the general
exclaimed with mock protest; "a lovely woman needs no other label but
her own loveliness. She is distinguished amongst all because she is
beautiful. What else should a woman be when she is the finest work the
Creator ever produced--an enchantress?"
"Well," Miss Fairfax rejoined dryly, "I would scold you, general, for
those lyrical effusions if they were intended for anybody else. Pretty
women are usually silly, because from childhood upwards they have been
taught to use their intellect solely for purposes of self-contemplation
and self-admiration. But Rosemary Fowkes is an exception. She is not
only beautiful, but brilliantly clever. Surely you remember those
articles in the _International Review_ on the subject of 'The Evils of
Bureaucracy in the Near East'? They were signed 'Uno,' and many doubted
at the time that the writer was a woman, and a young one at that."
"Uno?" General Naniescu exclaimed, and threw a significant glance at M.
de Kervoisin, who in his turn uttered an astonished "Ah!" and leaned
over the edge of the box in order to take a closer view of the lady
under discussion.