CHAPTER XII
t
fell out however, a short while later, that Bunny did read his play to Lady Alicia. In her sweet unawareness of the fiery influences that were at work on Bunny’s genius, she had insisted upon it.
“You were never going to send the play in without letting me hear it?” she had said reproachfully. And the young man, who could by no means plead a habit of shy secrecy as to his productions, consented with a somewhat simulated eagerness. So one Sunday evening Lady Alicia gathered her coterie together,—Jasper, the Edorys, Elinor Currey, and one or two others,—and Bunny, with picturesque descriptions of stage effects, read The Chian Wine. At first he felt a certain embarrassment in revealing his heart of flame to this polite assembly, and to her who had been in some measure his Ege
