Page:Hichens - The Green Carnation.djvu/86

78 "Oh no, I am too blind. Lady Locke, won't you come with me? I am sure you can drive. I can always tell by looking at people what they can do. I could pick you out a dentist from a crowd of a hundred people."

"Or a driver?" said Lady Locke. "I think I can manage the white pony. Yes, I will come with pleasure."

"I shall go into the drawing-room and compose my anthem for Sunday," said Lord Reggie. "I am unlike Saint Saëns. I always compose at the piano."

"And I will go into the rose-garden," said Esmé, "and eat pink roses. There is nothing more delicious than a ripe La France. May I, Mrs. Windsor? Please don't say 'this is liberty hall,' or I shall think of Mr. Alexander, the good young manager who never dies—but may I?"

"Do. And compose some Ritualistic epigrams to say to Mr. Smith to-night. How delightfully rustic we all are! So naïve! I am going to order dinner, and add up the household accounts for yesterday."

She rustled away with weary grace, rattling delicately a large bunch of keys that didn't open any thing in particular. They were a part of her get up as a country hostess.

A few moments later some simple chords,