Page:The Duke Decides (1904).djvu/224

 a discussion on French cookery—caused a sudden twist of the ivory shoulders towards her, the swift eagerness of the movement being discounted by the languorous stare of slowly interested surprise. There was a hint of resentment, perhaps also a trace of alarm, in the wheeling of the décolletée shoulders; in the stare these emotions were corrected into a mild desire to hear more of such a sweeping surmise.

“Lunatics—those two!” Mrs. Talmage Eglinton exclaimed, in well-modulated astonishment. “That’s what you English call rather a large order, isn’t it? What makes you say so?”

“Hush! My cousin is trying to persuade Miss Sherman to sing,” replied Sybil. “Wait till she has begun, and I’ll tell you. It’s too funny to keep to one’s self.”

For two days now the house-party at Prior’s Tarrant had been increased by the elegant addition of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, and on the surface matters were pursuing their normal course. The Duke had received his latest guest with a democratic courtesy none the less cordial because of her floridly expressed note, which in the stress of other preoccupations he had forgotten altogether. He had a vague