“It isn’t fun when Lady Rosamund comes down-stairs in a bad temper—­after you gentlemen have left,” remarked Miss Georgie, significantly; and then she prattled away in this careful undertone.  “What horrid stuff that fantasia is; don’t you think so?  A mixture of Wagner, and Chopin, and ‘Home, Sweet Home.’  Lady Adela has put you in her novel.  Oh, yes, she has; she showed me the last pages this morning.  You remember the young married English lady who is a great poetess?—­well, she is rescued from drowning in the Bay of Syracuse by a young Greek sailor, and you are the Greek sailor.  You’ll be flattered by her description of you.  You are entirely Greek and godlike—­what is that bust?—­Alcibiades?—­no, no, he was a general, wasn’t he?—­Alcinous, is it?—­or Antinous?—­never mind, the bust you see so often in Florence and Rome—­well, you’re described as being like that; and the young English lady becomes your patron, and you’re to be educated, and brought to London.  But whether her husband is to be killed off, to make way for you, or whether she is going to hand you over to one of her sisters, I don’t know yet.  It must be rather nice to look at yourself in a novel, and see what other people think of you and what fate they ordain for you.  Lady Adela has got all the criticisms of her last novel—­all the nice ones, I mean—­cut out and pasted on pages and bound in scarlet morocco.  I told her she should have all the unpleasant ones cut out and bound in green—­envy and jealousy, don’t you see?—­but she pretends not to have seen any besides those she has kept.  The book is in her own room; I suppose she reads it over every night, before going to bed.  And really, after so much praise, it is extraordinary that she is to have no money for the book—­no, quite the reverse, I believe.  She was looking forward to making Sir Hugh a very handsome present—­all out of her own earnings, don’t you know—­and she wrote to the publishers; but, instead of Sir Hugh getting a present, he will have to give her a check to cover the deficit, poor man!  Disappointing, isn’t it?—­quite horrid, I call it; and every one thought the novel such a success—­your friend, Mr. Quirk, was most enthusiastic—­and we made sure that the public would be equally impressed.  It isn’t the loss of the money that Lady Adela frets about; it is the publishers telling her that so few copies have been sold; and we made sure, from all that was said in the papers—­especially those that Mr. Quirk was kind enough to send—­that the book was going to be read everywhere.  Mind you don’t say anything of the young Greek sailor until Lady Adela herself shows you the MS.; and of course you mustn’t recognize your own portrait, for that is merely a guess of mine.  Oh, thank you, thank you!”

The last words were a murmur of gratitude to Lady Sybil Bourne for her kindness in playing this piece of her own composition; and thereafter Miss Georgie’s engaging and instructive monologue was not resumed, for the evening was now about to be wound up by a round or two of poker, and at poker Miss Georgie was an eager adept.