Page:Hichens - The Green Carnation.djvu/24

16 intercepting chatter of her companions. Mr. Amarinth's epigrams had been especially voluble during the garden scene.

"It has been a delightful evening," she said.

"Do you think so? I thought you would like Lord Reggie."

"I meant the music."

"The music! Oh! I see. Yes, 'Faust' is always nice; a little threadbare though, now. Old operas are like old bonnets, I always think. They ought to be remodelled, retrimmed from time to time. If we could keep Gounod's melodies now, and get them reharmonised by Saint-Saëns or Bruneau, it would be charming."

"I think it is a mercy something stands still nowadays," said Lady Locke, lying down easily on the sofa, and leaning her dark head against the cushions. "If all the old-fashioned operas and pictures and books were swept away, like the old-fashioned people, we should have no landmarks at all. London is not the same London it was ten years ago."

Mrs. Windsor lifted her eyebrows.

"The same London! I should hope not. Why, Aubrey Beardsley and Mr. Amarinth had not been invented then, and 'The Second Mrs. Tanqueray' had never been written, and women hardly ever smoked, and"