One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
Mrs. Blathenoy imagined a something in Mrs. Radnor’s
tone. She could account for it; not by the ordinary reading
of the feminine in the feminine, but through a husband who
professed to know secrets. She was young in years and experience,
ten months wedded, disappointedly awakened, enlivened
by the hour, kindled by a novel figure of man, fretful
for a dash of imprudence. This Mrs. Radnor should be the
one to second her very innocent turn for a galopade; her
own position allowed of any little diverting jig or reel, or
plunge in a bath—she required it, for the domestic Jacob
Blathenoy was a dry chip: proved such, without a day’s variation
during the whole of the ten wedded months. Nataly
gratified her spoken wish. Dartrey Fenellan bowed to the
lady, and she withdrew him, seeing composedly that other
and greater ladies had the wish ungratified. Their husbands
were not so rich as hers, and their complexions would hardly
have pleased the handsome brown-faced officer so well.
Banquet, equal to a blast of trumpet, was the detaining
word for the multitude. It circulated, one knows not how.
Eloquent as the whiffs to the sniffs (and nowhere is eloquence
to match it, when the latter are sharpened from within to
without), the word was very soon over the field. Mr. Carling
may have helped; he had it from Fenellan; and he was among
the principal groups, claiming or making acquaintances, as a
lawyer should do. The Concert was complimentarily a topic:
Durandarte divine!—did not everybody think so? Everybody
did, in default of a term for overtopping it. Our language is
poor at hyperbole; our voices are stronger. Gestures and
heaven-sent eyeballs invoke to display the ineffable. Where
was Durandarte now? Gone; already gone; off with the
Luciani for evening engagements; he came simply to oblige
his dear friend Mr. Radnor. Cheque fifty guineas: hardly more
on both sides than an exchange of smiles. Ah, these merchant-princes!
What of Mr. Radnor’s amateur instrumentalists?
Amateurs, they are not to be named: perfect musicians.
Mr. Radnor is the perfection of a host. Yes, yes; Mrs. Radnor;
Miss Radnor too: delicious voices; but what is it about Mr.
Radnor so captivating! He is not quite English, yet he is not
at all foreign. Is he very adventurous in business, as they say?
‘Soundest head in the City of London,’ Mr. Blathenoy remarked.
Sir Rodwell Blachington gave his nod.
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