There never was an occasion, before or after, I feel absolutely sure, when du Maurier was more truly glad to see me. His colour rapidly returned, and he swore that of all the bonnes blagues this was the best; but for all that, one thing is certain--he has never since attempted to pick pockets in Regent Street.
A delightful compromise between Bohemia and the land where well-regulated Society rules supreme, was the ground on which stood Moray Lodge, the residence of Arthur Lewis, the head of the well-known firm of Lewis and Allenby.
"Sir Lewis Cornelys, as everybody knows, lives in a palace on Campden Hill, a house of many windows, and, whichever window he looks out of, he sees his own garden and very little else. There was no pleasanter or more festive house than his in London, winter or summer."
I quote this, as probably it may not be known to everybody that Sir Lewis was knighted on the memorable occasion of Trilby's birthday, when she was presented at the drawing--and every other--room. With much kindly fore-thought his friend and biographer allows him to be eighty years old in the early sixties, thereby enabling him to have attained to-day the ripe old age of one hundred and fourteen.
Well, he was one of du Maurier's earliest friends, and when Taffy the Laird, and Little Billie, "a-smokin' their pipes and cigyars," told the cabby to drive to Mechelen Lodge, I found my way to what I called Moray Lodge, and met them there. And there too, to be sure, was Glorioli, "the tall, good-looking swarthy foreigner from whose scarcely parted, moist, thick, bearded lips issued the most ravishing sounds that had ever been heard from throat of man or woman or boy."
As we now empty one or the other of the million bottles that are about, marked "De Soria, Bordeaux," we often think with gratitude of the great wine-grower and still greater singer, so correctly described as "singing best for love or glory in the studios of his friends."
He occupied an exceptional position, inasmuch as he had made his house a centre towards which intellectual London gravitated. When he had done this, that, and the other to make his bachelor days memorable to a host of friends, he wound up by marrying one of England's fairest women, our great actress, Kate Terry. It was in those early days that Ellen, the débutante, was introduced to the dramatic world as "Kate Terry's sister." Since then Kate, having elected to rest on her laurels, is proud to be referred to by the younger generation as "Ellen Terry's sister."