One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
plunged himself.
They were received at the verge of the crowd outside the
theatre-doors by Skepsey, who wriggled, tore and clove a way
for them, where all were obedient, but the numbers lumped
and clogged. When finally they reached the stage, they spied
at Nesta’s box, during the thunder of the rounds of applause,
after shaking hands with Mr. Dubbleson, Sir Abraham
Quatley, Dudley Sowerby, and others; and with Beaves
Urmsing—a politician ‘never of the opposite party to a deuce
of a funny fellow!—go anywhere to hear hhm,’ he vowed.
‘Miss Radnor and Mademoiselle de Seilles arrived quite
safely,’ said Dudley, feasting on the box which contained
them and no Dartrey Fenellan in it.
Nesta was wondering at Dartrey’s absence. Not before Mr.
Dubbleson, the chairman, the ‘gentleman of local influence,’
had animated the drowsed wits and respiratory organs of a
packed audience by yielding place to Simeon, did Dartrey
appear. Simeon’s name was shouted, in proof of the happy
explosion of his first anecdote, as Dartrey took seat behind
Nesta. ‘Half an hour with the dear mother,’ he said.
Nesta’s eyes thanked him. She pressed the hand of a demure
young woman sitting close behind. Louise de Seilles.
‘You know Matilda Pridden.’
Dartrey held his hand out. ‘Has she forgiven me?’
Matilda bowed gravely, enfolding her affirmative in an outline
of the no need for it, with perfect good breeding. Dartrey
was moved to think Skepsey’s choice of a woman to worship
did him honour. He glanced at Louise. Her manner toward
Matilda Pridden showed her sisterly with Nesta. He said: ‘I
left Mr. Peridon playing.—A little anxiety to hear that the
great speech of the evening is done; it’s nothing else. I’ll run
to her as soon as it’s over.’
‘Oh, good of you! And kind of Mr. Peridon!’ She turned
to Louise, who smiled at the simple art of the exclamation,
assenting.
Victor below, on the stage platform, indicated the waving of a
hand to them, and his delight at Simeon’s ringing points: which
were, to Dartrey’s mind, vacuously clever and crafty. Dartrey
despised effects of oratory, save when soldiers had to be hurled
on a mark—or citizens nerved to stand for their country.
Nesta dived into her father’s brilliancy of appreciation, a
trifle pained by Dartrey’s aristocratic air when he surveyed
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