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Page 108
"You aren't George Bevan!"
"I am!"
"But--" Miss Plummer's voice almost failed here--"But I've been
dancing to your music for years! I've got about fifty of your
records on the Victrola at home."
George blushed. However successful a man may be he can never get
used to Fame at close range.
"Why, that tricky thing--you know, in the second act--is the
darlingest thing I ever heard. I'm mad about it."
"Do you mean the one that goes lumty-lumty-tum, tumty-tumty-tum?"
"No the one that goes ta-rumty-tum-tum, ta-rumty-tum.
You know! The one about Granny dancing the shimmy."
"I'm not responsible for the words, you know," urged George
hastily. "Those are wished on me by the lyrist."
"I think the words are splendid. Although poor popper thinks its
improper, Granny's always doing it and nobody can stop her! I loved
it." Miss Plummer leaned forward excitedly. She was an impulsive
girl. "Lady Caroline."
Conversation stopped. Lady Caroline turned.
"Yes, Millie?"
"Did you know that Mr. Bevan was _the_ Mr. Bevan?"
Everybody was listening now. George huddled pinkly in his chair. He
had not foreseen this bally-hooing. Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego
combined had never felt a tithe of the warmth that consumed him. He
was essentially a modest young man.
"_The_ Mr. Bevan?" echoed Lady Caroline coldly. It was painful to
her to have to recognize George's existence on the same planet as
herself. To admire him, as Miss Plummer apparently expected her to
do, was a loathsome task. She cast one glance, fresh from the
refrigerator, at the shrinking George, and elevated her
aristocratic eyebrows.
Miss Plummer was not damped. She was at the hero-worshipping age,
and George shared with the Messrs. Fairbanks, Francis X. Bushman,
and one or two tennis champions an imposing pedestal in her Hall of
Fame.
"You know! George Bevan, who wrote the music of 'Follow the Girl'."
Lady Caroline showed no signs of thawing. She had not heard of
'Follow the Girl'. Her attitude suggested that, while she admitted
the possibility of George having disgraced himself in the manner
indicated, it was nothing to her.
"And all those other things," pursued Miss Plummer indefatigably.
"You must have heard his music on the Victrola."
"Why, of course!"
It was not Lady Caroline who spoke, but a man further down the
table. He spoke with enthusiasm.
"Of course, by Jove!" he said. "The Schenectady Shimmy, by Jove,
and all that! Ripping!"
Everybody seemed pleased and interested. Everybody, that is to say,
except Lady Caroline and Lord Belpher. Percy was feeling that he
had been tricked. He cursed the imbecility of Keggs in suggesting
that this man should be invited to dinner. Everything had gone
wrong. George was an undoubted success. The majority of the
company were solid for him. As far as exposing his unworthiness in
the eyes of Maud was concerned, the dinner had been a ghastly
failure. Much better to have left him to lurk in his infernal
cottage. Lord Belpher drained his glass moodily. He was seriously
upset.
But his discomfort at that moment was as nothing to the agony which
rent his tortured soul a moment later. Lord Marshmoreton, who had
been listening with growing excitement to the chorus of approval,
rose from his seat. He cleared his throat. It was plain that Lord
Marshmoreton had something on his mind.
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