'Oh! let us talk of Jerusalem!' said Lady Bertie and Bellair. 'Ah, here
is Augustus! Let me make you and my husband acquainted.'
Tancred almost expected to see the moustached companion of the
morning, but it was not so. Lord Bertie and Bellair was a tall, thin,
distinguished, withered-looking young man, who thanked Tancred for his
courtesy of the morning with a sort of gracious negligence, and, after
some easy talk, asked Tancred to dine with them on the morrow. He was
engaged, but he promised to call on Lady Bertie and Bellair immediately,
and see some drawings of the Holy Land.
CHAPTER XIX.
_Lord Henry Sympathises_
PASSING through a marble antechamber, Tancred was ushered into an
apartment half saloon and half-library; the choicely-bound volumes,
which were not too numerous, were ranged on shelves inlaid in the walls,
so that they ornamented, without diminishing, the apartment. These walls
were painted in encaustic, corresponding with the coved ceiling, which
was richly adorned in the same fashion. A curtain of violet velvet,
covering if necessary the large window, which looked upon a balcony full
of flowers, and the umbrageous Park; an Axminster carpet, manufactured
to harmonise both in colour and design with the rest of the chamber; a
profusion of luxurious seats; a large table of ivory marquetry, bearing
a carved silver bell which once belonged to a pope; a Naiad, whose
golden urn served as an inkstand; some daggers that acted as paper
cutters, and some French books just arrived; a group of beautiful
vases recently released from an Egyptian tomb and ranged on a tripod of
malachite: the portrait of a statesman, and the bust of an emperor,
and a sparkling fire, were all circumstances which made the room both
interesting and comfortable in which Sidonia welcomed Tancred and
introduced him to a guest who had preceded him, Lord Henry Sydney.
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