“I wish my husband would roam about a bit and bring back strange palatable dishes.  No such luck, he’s got asthma and has to keep on a gravel soil with a south aspect and all sorts of other restrictions.”

“I don’t think you’re to be pitied in the least; a husband with asthma is like a captive golf-ball, you can always put your hand on him when you want him.”

“All the hangings, violette de Parme, all the furniture, rosewood.  Nothing is to be played in it except Mozart.  Mozart only.  Some of my friends wanted me to have a replica of the Mozart statue at Vienna put up in a corner of the room, with flowers always around it, but I really couldn’t.  I couldn’t.  One is so tired of it, one sees it everywhere.  I couldn’t do it.  I’m like that, you know.”

“Yes, I’ve secured the hero of the hour, Ronnie Storre, oh yes, rather.  He’s going to join our yachting trip, third week of August.  We’re going as far afield as Fiume, in the Adriatic—­or is it the AEgean?  Won’t it be jolly.  Oh no, we’re not asking Mrs. Yeovil; it’s quite a small yacht you know—­at least, it’s a small party.”

The excellent von Tolb took her departure, bearing off with her the Landgraf, who had already settled the date and duration of Ronnie’s Christmas visit.

“It will be dull, you know,” he warned the prospective guest; “our Landtag will not be sitting, and what is a bear-garden without the bears?  However, we haf some wildt schwein in our woods, we can show you some sport in that way.”

Ronnie instantly saw himself in a well-fitting shooting costume, with a Tyrolese hat placed at a very careful angle on his head, but he confessed that the other details of boar-hunting were rather beyond him.

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.

“We were just talking about Ronnie Storre’s music, Canon,” said the Duchess; “I consider it just perfectly glorious.”

“It’s a great talent, isn’t it, Canon,” put in Joan briskly, “and of course it’s a responsibility as well, don’t you think?  Music can be such an influence, just as eloquence can; don’t you agree with me?”

The quarry of the English language was of course a public property, but it was disconcerting to have one’s own particular barrow-load of sentence-building material carried off before one’s eyes.  The Canon’s impressive homily on Ronnie’s gift and its possibilities had to be hastily whittled down to a weakly acquiescent, “Quite so, quite so.”

“Have you tasted this iced mulberry salad, Canon?” asked the Duchess; “it’s perfectly luscious.  Just hurry along and get some before it’s all gone.”