第96章

They were sitting at a round table, and in order that the ladies and gentlemen should alternate themselves properly, Mr Musselboro was opposite to the host. Next to him on his right was old Mrs Van Siever, the widow of a Dutch merchant, who was very rich. She was a ghastly thing to look at, as well from the quantity as from the nature of the wiggeries she wore. She had not only a false front, but long false curls, as to which it cannot be conceived that she would suppose that anyone would be ignorant as to their falseness. She was very thin, too, and very small, and putting aside her wiggeries, you would think her to be all eyes. She was a ghastly old woman to the sight, and not altogether pleasant in her mode of talking. She seemed to know Mr Musselboro very well, for she called him by his name without any prefix.

He had, indeed, begun life as a clerk in her husband's office.

'Why doesn't What's-his-name have real silver forks?' she said to him.

Now Mrs What's-his-name--Mrs Dobbs Broughton we will call her--was sitting on the other side of Mr Musselboro, between him and Mr Crosbie;and, so placed, Mr Musselboro found it rather hard to answer the question, more especially as he was probably aware that other questions would follow.

'What's the use?' said Mr Musselboro. 'Everybody has these plated things now. What's the use of a lot of capital lying dead?'

'Everybody doesn't. I don't. You know as well as I do, Musselboro, that the appearance of the thing goes for a great deal. Capital isn't lying dead as long as people know that you've got it.'

Before answering this Mr Musselboro was driven to reflect that Mrs Dobbs Broughton would probably hear his reply. 'You won't find that there is any doubt on that head in the City as to Broughton,' he said.

'I shan't ask in the City, and if I did, I should not believe what people told me. I think there are sillier folks in the City than anywhere else. What did he give for that picture upstairs which the young man painted?'

'What, Mrs Dobbs Broughton's portrait?'

'You don't call that a portrait, do you? I mean the one with the three naked women?' Mr Musselboro glanced around with one eye, and felt sure that Mrs Dobbs Broughton had heard the question. But the old woman was determined to have an answer. 'How much did he give for it, Musselboro?'

'Six hundred pounds, I believe,' said Mr Musselboro, looking straight before him as he answered, and pretending to treat the subject with perfect indifference.

'Did he indeed, now? Six hundred pounds! And yet he hasn't got silver spoons. How things are changed! Tell me, Musselboro, who was that young man who came in with the painter?'

Mr Musselboro turned round and asked Mrs Dobbs Broughton. 'A Mr John Eames, Mrs Van Siever,' said Mrs Dobbs Broughton, whispering across the front of Mr Musselboro. 'He is private secretary to Lord--Lord--Lord Iforget who. Some one of the Ministers, I know. And he had a great fortune left him the other day by Lord --Lord--Lord somebody else.'

'All among the lords, I see,' said Mrs Van Siever. Then Mrs Dobbs Broughton drew herself back, remembering some little attack which had been made on her by Mrs Van Siever when she herself had had the real lord to dine with her.

There was a Miss Van Siever there also, sitting between Crosbie and Conway Dalrymple. Conway Dalrymple had been specially brought there to sit next to Miss Van Siever. 'There's no knowing how much she'll have,' said Mrs Dobbs Broughton, in the warmth of their friendship. 'But it's all real. It is, indeed,. The mother is awfully rich.'

'But she's awful in another way, too,' said Dalrymple.

'Indeed she is, Conway.' Mrs Dobbs Broughton had got into a way of calling her young friend by his Christian name. 'All the world calls him Conway,' she had said to her husband once when her husband had caught her doing so. 'She is awful. Her husband made the business in the City, when things were very different from what they are now, and I can't help having her. She has transactions of business with Dobbs. But there's no mistake about the money.'

'She needn't leave it to her daughter, I suppose?'

'But why shouldn't she? She has nobody else. You might offer to paint her, you know. She'd make an excellent picture. So much character. You come and see her.'

Conway Dalrymple had expressed his willingness to meet Miss Van Siever, saying something, however, as to his present position being one which did not admit of any matrimonial speculation. Then Mrs Dobbs Broughton had told him, with much seriousness, that he was altogether wrong, and that were he to forget himself, or commit himself, or misbehave himself, there must be an end to their pleasant intimacy. In answer to which, Mr Dalrymple had said that his Grace was surely of all Graces the least gracious. And now he had come to meet Miss Van Siever, and was now seated next to her at table.