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"A small black dog, something like a schipperke?" asked Comus in a low voice. "Yes, that was it." "I saw it myself to-night; it ran from behind my chair just as I was sitting down. Don't say anything to the others about it; it would frighten my mother." "Have you ever seen it before?" Lady Veula asked quickly. "Once, when I was six years old. It followed my father downstairs."
The average Briton arrives at the same judgment about Roan's handling of foreign affairs as Omar does of the Supreme Being in his dealings with the world: He's a good fellow and 'twill all be well." Lady Veula laughed lightly. "My Party is in power so I may exercise the privilege of being optimistic.
"You're really rather dreadful," said Lady Veula, trying to look as if she thought so; "remember, we are all equal in the sight of Heaven." For a preacher of wholesome truths her voice rather lacked conviction. "If I and Ernest Klopstock are really equal in the sight of Heaven," said Youghal, with intense complacency, "I should recommend Heaven to consult an eye specialist."
To see her standing at the top of an expensively horticultured staircase receiving her husband's guests was rather like watching an animal performing on a music-hall stage. One always tells oneself that the animal likes it, and one always knows that it doesn't. "Lady Veula is an ardent Free Trader, isn't she?" someone once remarked to Lady Caroline.
Sometimes he laughed quietly to himself at some chance remark of a scarcely mirth-provoking nature, and Lady Veula, watching him narrowly, came to the conclusion that an element of fear was blended with his seemingly buoyant spirits.
Lady Veula said nothing. She knew that Comus had lost his father at the age of six. In the drawing-room Serena made nervous excuses for her talkative friend. "Really, rather an interesting man, you know, and up to the eyes in all sorts of movements. Just the sort of person to turn loose at a drawing-room meeting, or to send down to a mission-hall in some unheard-of neighbourhood.
In the third interval, as he gazed round at the chattering house, someone touched him on the arm. It was Lady Veula Croot. "I suppose in a week's time you'll be on the high seas," she said. "I'm coming to your farewell dinner, you know; your mother has just asked me. I'm not going to talk the usual rot to you about how much you will like it and so on.
And he quoted almost aloud, as one does in the exhilaration of a canter: "How much I loved that way you had Of smiling most, when very sad, A smile which carried tender hints Of sun and spring, And yet, more than all other thing, Of weariness beyond all words." And having satisfactorily fitted Lady Veula on to a quotation he dismissed her from his mind.
"At any rate you give them the opportunity," said Comus, cryptically. As the ladies rose to leave the table Comus crossed over to pick up one of Lady Veula's gloves that had fallen to the floor. "I did not know you kept a dog," said Lady Veula. "We don't," said Comus, "there isn't one in the house." "I could have sworn I saw one follow you across the hall this evening," she said.
He laughed gaily and with apparent carelessness, but again Lady Veula caught the frightened note in his laughter. Mrs. Henry, with practical sympathy, was telling Francesca two good ways for getting wine stains out of tablecloths. The smaller economies of life were an unnecessary branch of learning for Mrs.
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