LADY MILBOROUGH’S DINNER PARTY
Louis Trevelyan went down to his club in Pall Mall,
the Acrobats, and there heard a rumour that added
to his anger against Colonel Osborne. The Acrobats
was a very distinguished club, into which it was now
difficult for a young man to find his way, and almost
impossible for a man who was no longer young, and therefore
known to many. It had been founded some twenty
years since with the idea of promoting muscular exercise
and gymnastic amusements; but the promoters had become
fat and lethargic, and the Acrobats spent their time
mostly in playing whist, and in ordering and eating
their dinners. There were supposed to be, in some
out-of-the-way part of the building, certain poles
and sticks and parallel bars with which feats of activity
might be practised, but no one ever asked for them
now-a-days, and a man, when he became an Acrobat,
did so with a view either to the whist or the cook,
or possibly to the social excellences of the club.
Louis Trevelyan was an Acrobat as was also Colonel
Osborne.
‘So old Rowley is coming home,’ said one
distinguished Acrobat to another in Trevelyan’s
hearing.
‘How the deuce is he managing that? He
was here a year ago?’
’Osborne is getting it done. He is to come
as a witness for this committee. It must be no
end of a lounge for him. It doesn’t count
as leave, and he has every shilling paid for him, down
to his cab-fares when he goes out to dinner.
There’s nothing like having a friend at Court.’
Such was the secrecy of Colonel Osborne’s secret!
He had been so chary of having his name mentioned
in connection with a political job, that he had found
it necessary to impose on his young friend the burden
of a secret from her husband, and yet the husband heard
the whole story told openly at his club on the same
day! There was nothing in the story to anger
Trevelyan had he not immediately felt that there must
be some plan in the matter between his wife and Colonel
Osborne, of which he had been kept ignorant. Hitherto,
indeed, his wife, as the reader knows, could not have
told him. He had not seen her since the matter
had been discussed between her and her friend.
But he was angry because he first learned at his club
that which he thought he ought to have learned at home.
As soon as he reached his house he went at once to
his wife’s room, but her maid was with her,
and nothing could be said at that moment. He
then dressed himself, intending to go to Emily as soon
as the girl had left her; but the girl remained—was,
as he believed, kept in the room purposely by his
wife, so that he should have no moment of private
conversation. He went downstairs, therefore, and
found Nora standing by the drawing-room fire.
‘So you are dressed first today?’ he said.
’I thought your turn always came last.’
’Emily sent Jenny to me first today because
she thought you would be home, and she didn’t
go up to dress till the last minute.’
