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On the buzz and chatter of the spectators fell suddenly three sound strokes, distant, measured, sinister; the clang of a clock striking three. "Three o'clock and not a boy scout within sight or hearing!" exclaimed the loud ringing voice of Joan Mardle; "one can usually hear their drums and trumpets a couple of miles away."
"'Silent upon a peak in Darien," quoted a penetrating voice that could only belong to Joan Mardle; "I say, can any one picture Mrs. Menteith- Mendlesohnn silent on any peak or under any circumstances?" If any one had that measure of imagination, no one acknowledged the fact.
"Gracious lady," he replied with deliberation and meaning, "it has given pleasure. It is an evening to be remembered." The gracious lady suppressed a sigh of satisfaction. Memory in high places was a thing fruitful and precious beyond computation. Cicely's party at the Porphyry Restaurant had grown to imposing dimensions. Every one whom she had asked had come, and so had Joan Mardle.
With the departure of the von Tolb party Canon Mousepace gravitated decently but persistently towards a corner where the Duchess, still at concert pitch, was alternatively praising Ronnie's performance and the mulberry salad. Joan Mardle, who formed one of the group, was not openly praising any one, but she was paying a silent tribute to the salad.
"At any rate we know now that a fern takes life very seriously," broke in Joan Mardle, who had somehow wriggled herself into Cicely's box.
As Yeovil passed the musicians launched out into the tune which the doctor had truly predicted he would hear to repletion before he had been many days in London; the "National Anthem of the fait accompli." Joan Mardle had reached forty in the leisurely untroubled fashion of a woman who intends to be comely and attractive at fifty.
His broad shoulders were held square, his back straight, his head poised firm and alert on a splendid column of neck." Alas! The description would fit Posh but poorly now. "Yes," said he. "I was Mr. FitzGerald's partner. But I can't stop to mardle along o' ye now. I'll meet ye when an' where ye like." I made an appointment with him, which he failed to keep. Then another. Then another, and another.
"I'm not quite so intolerant as all that," said Yeovil; "anyhow I promise to like Ronnie. Is any one else coming to lunch?" "Joan Mardle will probably drop in, in fact I'm afraid she's a certainty. She invited herself in that way of hers that brooks of no refusal.
Among the privileged onlookers drawn up near the saluting point the fidgeting was more unrestrained. "Six minutes past three, and not a sign of them!" exclaimed Joan Mardle, with the explosive articulation of one who cannot any longer hold back a truth. "Hark!" said some one; "I hear trumpets!" There was an instant concentration of listening, a straining of eyes.
"Oh, a blend of Beardsley and Bakst as far as get-up and costume, and of course his own personality counted for a good deal. Quite one of the successes of the evening was Leutnant von Gabelroth, as George Washington, with Joan Mardle as his shadow, typifying Inconvenient Candour. He put her down officially as Truthfulness, but every one had heard the other version."
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