Logan's position at dinner was better for observation than for
entertainment. He sat on the right hand of Lady Mary, where the Prince
ought to have been seated, but Lady Alice sat on her father's left, and
next her, of course, the Prince. 'Love rules the camp, the court, the
grove,' and Love deranged the accustomed order, for the Prince sat
between Lady Alice and Logan. Opposite Logan, and at Lady Mary's left,
was the Jesuit, and next him, Scremerston, beside whom was Miss
Willoughby, on the Earl's right. Inevitably the conversation of the
Prince and Lady Alice was mainly directed to each other--so much so that
Logan did not once perceive the princely eyes attracted to Miss
Willoughby opposite to him, though it was not easy for another to look at
anyone else. Logan, in the pauses of his rather conventional
entertainment by Lady Mary, _did_ look, and he was amazed no less by the
beauty than by the spirits and gaiety of the young lady so recently left
forlorn by the recreant Jephson. This flower of the Record Office and of
the British Museum was obviously not destined to blush unseen any longer.
She manifestly dazzled Scremerston, who seemed to remember Miss Bangs,
her charms, and her dollars no more than Miss Willoughby appeared to
remember the treacherous Don.
Scremerston was very unlike his father: he was a small, rather fair man,
with a slight moustache, a close-clipped beard, and little grey eyes with
pink lids. His health was not good: he had been invalided home from the
Imperial Yeomanry, after a slight wound and a dangerous attack of enteric
fever, and he had secured a pair for the rest of the Session. He was not
very clever, but he certainly laughed sufficiently at what Miss
Willoughby said, who also managed to entertain the Earl with great
dexterity and _aplomb_. Meanwhile Logan and the Jesuit amused the
excellent Lady Mary as best they might, which was not saying much. Lady
Mary, though extremely amiable, was far from brilliant, and never having
met a Jesuit before, she regarded Father Riccoboni with a certain
hereditary horror, as an animal of a rare species, and, of habits perhaps
startling and certainly perfidious. However, the lady was philanthropic
in a rural way, and Father Riccoboni enlightened her as to the reasons
why his enterprising countrymen leave their smiling land, and open small
ice-shops in little English towns, or, less ambitious, invest their
slender capital in a monkey and a barrel-organ.
'I don't so very much mind barrel-organs myself,' said Logan; 'I don't
know anything prettier than to see the little girls dancing to the music
in a London side street.'
'But do not the musicians all belong to that dreadful Camorra?' asked the
lady.
'Not if they come from the North, madam,' said the Jesuit. 'And do not
all your Irish reapers belong to that dreadful Land League, or whatever
it is called?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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