"Good luck!" whispered Lady Merrenden as Robert got out, and then we drove
on.
Several people were lunching at Carlton House Terrace: cabinet ministers,
and a clever novelist, and the great portrait painter, besides two or
three charming women--one as pretty and smart as Lady Ver, but the others
more ordinary looking, only so well mannered. No real frumps like the
Montgomeries. We had a delightful lunch, and I tried to talk nicely and do
my best to please my dear hostess. When they had all left I think we both
began to feel excited, and long apprehensively for the arrival of Robert.
So we talked of the late guests.
"It amuses my husband to see a number of different kinds of people," she
said; "but we had nothing very exciting to-day, I must confess, though
sometimes the authors and authoresses bore me, and they are often very
disappointing--one does not any longer care to read their books after
seeing them."
I said I could quite believe that.
"I do not go in for budding geniuses," she continued. "I prefer to wait
until they have arrived, no matter their origin; then they have acquired a
certain outside behavior on the way up, and it does not _froisse_ one so.
Merrenden is a great judge of human nature, and variety entertains him.
Left to myself, I fear I should be quite contented with less gifted people
who were simply of one's own world.
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