The Vicar, who was presently captured and set down next to Lady Hammergallow, kept an anxious eye ever Angelward while she told him particulars of the incomes made by violinists--particulars which, for the most part, she invented as she went along. She had been a little ruffled by the incident of the glasses, but had decided that it came within the limits of permissible originality. So figure to yourself the Green Saloon at Siddermorton Park; an Angel thinly disguised in clerical vestments and with a violin in his hands, standing by the grand piano, and a respectable gathering of quiet nice people, nicely dressed, grouped about the room. Anticipatory gabble--one hears scattered fragments of conversation. "He is _incog._"; said the very eldest Miss Papaver to Mrs Pirbright. "Isn't it quaint and delicious. Jessica Jehoram says she saw him at Vienna, but she can't remember the name. The Vicar knows all about him, but he is so close----" "How hot and uncomfortable the dear Vicar is looking," said Mrs Pirbright. "I've noticed it before when he sits next to Lady Hammergallow. She simply will _not_ respect his cloth. She goes on----" "His tie is all askew," said the very eldest Miss Papaver, "and his hair! It really hardly looks as though he had brushed it all day." "Seems a foreign sort of chap. Affected. All very well in a drawing-room," said George Harringay, sitting apart with the younger Miss Pirbright. "But for my part give me a masculine man and a feminine woman. What do you think?" "Oh!--I think so too," said the younger Miss Pirbright. "Guineas and guineas," said Lady Hammergallow. "I've heard that some of them keep quite stylish establishments. You would scarcely credit it----" "I love music, Mr Angel, I adore it. It stirs something in me. I can scarcely describe it," said Mrs Jehoram. "Who is it says that delicious antithesis: Life without music is brutality; music without life is---- Dear me! perhaps you remember? Music without life----it's Ruskin I think?" "I'm sorry that I do not," said the Angel. "I have read very few books." "How charming of you!" said Mrs Jehoram. "I wish I didn't. I sympathise with you profoundly. I would do the same, only we poor women----I suppose it's originality we lack---- And down here one is driven to the most desperate proceedings----" "He's certainly very _pretty_. But the ultimate test of a man is his strength," said George Harringay. "What do you think?" "Oh!--I think so too," said the younger Miss Pirbright. "It's the effeminate man who makes the masculine woman. When the glory of a man is his hair, what's a woman to do? And when men go running about with beautiful hectic dabs----" "Oh George! You are so dreadfully satirical to-day," said the younger Miss Pirbright. "I'm _sure_ it isn't paint." "I'm really not his guardian, my dear Lady Hammergallow. Of course it's very kind indeed of you to take such an interest----"