Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/166

162 "Yes," answered the host, in a curiously dry voice.

As the conversation seemed to be getting too much of the after dinner style, Madge arose, and all the other ladies followed her example. The ever polite Felix held the door open for them, and received a bright smile from his wife for, what she considered, his brilliant talk at the dinner table. Brian sat still, and wondered why Frettlby changed color on hearing the name—he supposed that the millionaire had been mixed up with the actress, and did not care about being reminded of his early indiscretions—and, after all, who does?

"She was as light as a fairy," said Valpy, with a chuckle.

"What became of her?" asked Brian, abruptly.

Mark Frettlby looked up suddenly, as Fitzgerald asked this question.

"She went to England in 1858," said the aged one. "I'm not quite sure if it was July or August, but it was 1858."

"You will excuse me, Valpy but I hardly think that these reminiscences of a ballet-dancer are amusing," said Frettlby, curtly, pouring himself out a glass of wine. "Let us drop the subject."

When a man expresses a wish at his own table, it is hardly the proper thing for anyone to go contrary to it, but Brian felt strongly inclined to pursue the conversation. Politeness, however, forbade him to make any further remark, and he consoled himself with the reflection that, after dinner, he would ask Old Valpy about the ballet-dancer whose name caused Mark Frettlby to exhibit such strong emotion. But, to his annoyance, when the gentlemen went into the drawing-room, Frettlby took the old colonist off to his study, where he sat with him the whole evening, talking over old times.

Fitzgerald found Madge seated at the piano in the drawing-room, playing one of Mendelssohn's "Songs without words."

"What a dismal thing that is you are playing, Madge," he said lightly, as he sank into a seat beside her. "It is more like a funeral than anything else."

"Gad, so it is," said Felix, who came up at this moment. "I don't care myself about 'Op. 84' and all that classical humbug. Give me something light—'Belle Helene,' with Emelie Melville, and all that sort of thing."