The rest I shall ask to come
in at nine, for I know Lady Ambermere does not like late hours. And now
shall we talk over our tableaux?"
So even Lucia's mind had not been wholly absorbed in Beethoven, though
Georgie, as usual, told her she had never played so divinely.
Chapter ELEVEN
The manoeuvres of the next week became so bewilderingly complicated
that by Wednesday Georgie was almost thinking of going away to the
seaside with Foljambe and Dicky in sheer despair, and in after years he
could not without great mental effort succeed in straightening it all
out, and the effort caused quite a buzzing in his head.... That Sunday
evening Lucia sent an invitation to Lady Ambermere for "dinner and
tableaux," to which Lady Ambermere's "people" replied by telephone on
Monday afternoon that her ladyship was sorry to be unable. Lucia
therefore gave up the idea of a dinner-party, and reverted to her
original scheme of an evening party like Olga's got up on the spur of
the moment, with great care and most anxious preparation. The
rehearsals for the impromptu tableaux meantime went steadily forward
behind closed doors, and Georgie wrestled with twenty bars of the music
of the "Awakening of Brunnhilde." Lucia intended to ask nobody until
Friday evening, and Olga should see what sort of party Riseholme could
raise at a moment's notice.
Early on Tuesday morning the devil entered into Daisy Quantock,
probably by means of subconscious telepathy, and she proceeded to go
round the green at the morning parliament, and ask everybody to come in
for a good romp on Saturday evening, and they all accepted.
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