Luton pushed his way through the crowd and left the room, without troubling to take leave of his hostess.

“What a strange young man,” exclaimed the Duchess; “now do take me into the next room,” she went on almost in the same breath, “I’m just dying for some iced coffee.”

Yeovil escorted her through the throng of Ronnie-worshippers to the desired haven of refreshment.

“Marvellous!” Mrs. Menteith-Mendlesohnn was exclaiming in ringing trumpet tones; “of course I always knew he could play, but this is not mere piano playing, it is tone-mastery, it is sound magic.  Mrs. Yeovil has introduced us to a new star in the musical firmament.  Do you know, I feel this afternoon just like Cortez, in the poem, gazing at the newly discovered sea.”

“‘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.

“A great gift and a great responsibility,” Canon Mousepace was assuring the Grafin; “the power of evoking sublime melody is akin to the power of awakening thought; a musician can appeal to dormant consciousness as the preacher can appeal to dormant conscience.  It is a responsibility, an instrument for good or evil.  Our young friend here, we may be sure, will use it as an instrument for good.  He has, I feel certain, a sense of his responsibility.”

“He is a nice boy,” said the Grafin simply; “he has such pretty hair.”

In one of the window recesses Rhapsodie Pantril was talking vaguely but beautifully to a small audience on the subject of chromatic chords; she had the advantage of knowing what she was talking about, an advantage that her listeners did not in the least share.  “All through his playing there ran a tone-note of malachite green,” she declared recklessly, feeling safe from immediate contradiction; “malachite green, my colour—­the colour of striving.”

Having satisfied the ruling passion that demanded gentle and dextrous self-advertisement, she realised that the Augusta Smith in her craved refreshment, and moved with one of her over-awed admirers towards the haven where peaches and iced coffee might be considered a certainty.

The refreshment alcove, which was really a good-sized room, a sort of chapel-of-ease to the larger drawing-room, was already packed with a crowd who felt that they could best discuss Ronnie’s triumph between mouthfuls of fruit salad and iced draughts of hock-cup.  So brief is human glory that two or three independent souls had even now drifted from the theme of the moment on to other more personally interesting topics.

“Iced mulberry salad, my dear, it’s a specialite de la maison, so to speak; they say the roving husband brought the recipe from Astrakhan, or Seville, or some such outlandish place.”