wn as a very agreeable man, as well as a rising
politician.

His own position was pleasant enough. He was treated with manifest
distinction--flattered, complimented, well-nigh caressed. In the
drawing-room after dinner, Sydney, surrounded by complacent and
adulating friends, really experienced some of the most agreeable
sensations of his life. He was almost sorry when the group gradually
melted away, and conversation was succeeded by music. He had never
cultivated his taste for music; but he had a naturally fine ear, upon
which ordinary drawing-room performances jarred sadly. But, standing
with his arms folded and his back against the wall, in the neighborhood
of Mrs. George Murray, the prettiest woman in the room, he became
gradually aware that Lady Pynsent's musicians were as admirable in their
way as her cook. She would no more put up with bad singing than bad
songs; and she probably put both on the same level. She did not ask
amateurs to sing or play; but she had one or two professionals staying
in the house, who were "charmed" to perform for her; and she had secured
a well-known "local man" to play accompaniments. In the case of one at
least of the professionals, Lady Pynsent paid a very handsome fee for
his services; but this fact was not supposed to transpire to the general
public.

When the professionals had done their work there was a little pause,
succeeded by the slight buzz that spoke of expectation. "Miss Pynsent is
going to play," Mrs. Murray said to Sydney, putting up her long-handled
eyeglass and looking expectantly towards the grand piano. "Oh, now, we
shall have a treat."

"Sixty thousand pounds," Sydney said to himself with a smile; but he
would not for the world have said it aloud. "We must put up with bad
playing from its fortunate possessor, I suppose." And he turned his head
with resignation in the direction of the little inner drawing-room, in
which the piano stood. This room should, perhaps, be described as an
alcove, rather than a separate apartment: it was divided from the great
drawing-room by a couple of shallow steps that ran across its whole
width, so that a sort of natural stage was formed, framed above and on
either side by artistically festooned curtains of yellow brocade.

"Isn't it effective?" Mrs. Murray murmured to him, with a wave of her
eyeglass to the alcove. "So useful for tableaux and plays, you know.
Awfully clever of Lady Pynsent to use the room in that way. There used
o