Chapter II: Part 2

The American, who, like all the listeners, had been profoundly moved by the ex-King’s recitation, roused himself to bow and say, ‘I shall esteem it a great honour if His Majesty and yourself, Mrs Crump, and these other good gentlemen . . .’

‘That’s the way,’ said Lottie. ‘Hi, there, where’s my Fairy Prince? Powdering hisself again, I suppose. Come here, Nancy, and put away the beauty cream.’

In came the waiter.

‘Bottle of wine,’ said Lottie, ‘with Judge Thingummy there.’ (Unless specified in detail, all drinks are champagne in Lottie’s parlour. There is also a mysterious game played with dice which always ends with someone giving a bottle of wine to every one in the room, but Lottie has an equitable soul and she generally sees to it, in making up the bills, that the richest people pay for everything.)

After the third or fourth bottle of wine Lottie said, ‘Who d’you think we’ve got dining upstairs to-night? _Prime Minister._’

‘Me, I have never liked Prime Ministers. They talk and talk and then they talk more. “Sir, you must sign that.” “Sir, you must go here and there.” “Sir, you must do up that button before you give audience to the black plenipotentiary from Liberia.” Pah! After the war my people give me the bird, yes, but they throw my Prime Minister out of the window, bump right bang on the floor. Ha, ha.’

‘He ain’t alone either,’ said Lottie with a terrific wink.

‘What, Sir James Brown?’ said the Major, shocked in spite of himself. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘No, name of Outrage.’

‘He’s not Prime Minister.’

‘Yes, he is. I saw it in the paper.’

‘No, he’s not. He went out of office last week.’

‘Well I never. How they keep changing. I’ve no patience with it. Doge. Doge. What’s the Prime Minister’s name?’

‘Beg pardon, mum.’

‘What’s the name of the Prime Minister?

‘Not to-night, I don’t think, mum, not as I’ve been informed anyway.’

‘What’s the name of the Prime Minister, you stupid old man?’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon, mum. I didn’t quite hear you. Sir James Brown, mum, Bart. A very nice gentleman, so I’ve been told. Conservative, I’ve heard said. Gloucestershire they come from, I think.’

‘There, what did I say?’ said Lottie triumphantly.

‘It is one very extraordinary thing, your British Constitution,’ said the ex-King of Ruritania. ‘All the time when I was young they taught me nothing but British Constitution. My tutor had been a master at your Eton school. And now when I come to England always there is a different Prime Minister and no one knows which is which.’

‘Oh, sir,’ said the Major, ‘that’s because of the Liberal Party.’

‘Liberals? Yes. We, too, had Liberals. I tell you something now, I had a gold fountain-pen. My godfather, the good Archduke of Austria, give me one gold fountain-pen with eagles on him. I loved my gold fountain-pen.’ Tears stood in the King’s eyes. Champagne was a rare luxury to him now. ‘I loved very well my pen with the little eagles. And one day there was a Liberal Minister. A Count Tampen, one man, Mrs Crump, of exceedingly evilness. He come to talk to me and he stood at my little escritoire and he thump and talk too much about somethings I not understand, and when he go—where was my gold fountain-pen with eagles—gone too.’

‘Poor old King,’ said Lottie. ‘I tell you what. You have another drink.’

‘. . . Esteem it a great honour,’ said the American, ‘if your Majesty and these gentlemen and Mrs Crump . . .’

‘Doge, tell my little love-bird to come hopping in . . . you there, Judge wants another bottle of wine.’

‘. . . Should honour it a great esteem . . . esteem it a great honour if Mrs Majesty and these gentlemen and His Crump . . .’

‘That’s all right, Judge. Another bottle coming.’

‘. . . Should esteem it a great Crump if his honour and these Majesties and Mrs Gentlemen . . .’

‘Yes, yes, that’s all right, Judge. Don’t let him fall down, boys. Bless me, how these Americans do drink.’

‘. . . I should Crump it a great Majesty if Mrs Esteem . . .’

And his Honour Judge Skimp of the Federal High Court began to laugh rather a lot. (It must be remembered in all these people’s favour that none of them had yet dined.)

Now there was a very bland, natty, moustachioed young man sitting there who had been drinking away quietly in the corner without talking to anyone except for an occasional ‘Cheerio’ to Judge Skimp. Suddenly he got up and said:

‘Bet-you-can’t-do-this.’

He put three halfpennies on the table, moved them about very deliberately for a bit, and then looked up with an expression of pride. ‘Only touched each halfpenny five times, and changed their positions twice,’ he said. ‘Do-it-again if you like.’

‘Well, isn’t he a clever boy?’ said Lottie. ‘Wherever did they teach you that?’

‘Chap-in-a-train showed me,’ he said.

‘It didn’t look very hard,’ said Adam.

‘Just-you-try. Bet-you-anything-you-like you can’t do it.’

‘How much will you bet?’ Lottie loved this kind of thing.

‘Anything-you-like. Five hundred pounds.’

‘Go on,’ said Lottie. ‘You do it. He’s got lots of money.’

‘All right,’ said Adam.

He took the halfpennies and moved them about just as the young man had done. When he finished he said, ‘How’s that?’

‘Well I’m jiggered,’ said the young man. ‘Never saw anyone do it like that before. I’ve won a lot of money this week with that trick. Here you are.’ And he took out a note-case and gave Adam a five-hundred-pound note. Then he sat down in his corner again.

‘Well,’ said Lottie with approval, ‘that’s sporting. Give the boys a drink for that.’

So they all had another drink.

Presently the young man stood up again.

‘Toss you double-or-quits,’ he said. ‘Best-out-of-three.’

‘All right,’ said Adam.

They tossed twice and Adam won both times.

‘Well I’m jiggered,’ said the young man, handing over another note. ‘You’re a lucky chap.’

‘He’s got pots of money,’ said Lottie. ‘A thousand pounds is nothing to him.’

She liked to feel like that about all her guests. Actually in this young man’s case she was wrong. He happened to have all that money in his pocket because he had just sold out his few remaining securities to buy a new motor car. So next day he bought a second-hand motor bicycle instead.

Adam felt a little dizzy, so he had another drink.

‘D’you mind if I telephone?’ he said.

He rang up Nina Blount.

‘Is that Nina?’

‘Adam, dear, you’re tight already.’

‘How d’you know?’

‘I can hear it. What is it? I’m just going out to dinner.’

‘I just rang up to say that it’s all right about our getting married. I’ve got a thousand pounds.’

‘Oh good. How?’

‘I’ll tell you when we meet. Where are you dining?’

‘Ritz. Archie. Darling. I _am_ glad about our getting married.’

‘So am I. But don’t let’s get intense about it.’

‘I wasn’t, and anyway you’re tight.’

He went back to the parlour. Miss Runcible had arrived and was standing in the hall very much dressed up.

‘Who’s that tart?’ asked Lottie.

‘That’s not a tart, Lottie, that’s Agatha Runcible.’

‘Looks like a tart. How do you do, my dear, come in. We’re just thinking of having a little drink. You know everyone here, of course, don’t you? That’s the King with the beard. . . . No, dearie, the King of Ruritania. You didn’t mind my taking you for a tart, did you, dear? You look so like one, got up like that. Of course, I can see you aren’t now.’

‘_My dear_,’ said Miss Runcible, ‘if you’d seen me this afternoon . . .’ and she began to tell Lottie Crump about the Customs House.

‘What would you do if you suddenly got a thousand pounds?’ Adam asked.

‘A thousand _pound_,’ said the King, his eyes growing dreamy at this absurd vision. ‘Well, first I should buy a house and a motor car and a yacht and a new pair of gloves, and then I would start one little newspaper in my country to say that I must come back and be the King, and then I don’t know what I do, but I have such fun and grandness again.’

‘But you can’t do all that with a thousand pounds, you know, sir.’

‘No . . . can’t I not? . . . not with thousand pound. . . . Oh, well, then I think I buy a gold pen with eagles on him like the Liberals stole.’

‘I know what I’d do,’ said the Major. ‘I’d put it on a horse.’

‘What horse?’

‘I can tell you a likely outsider for the November Handicap. Horse named Indian Runner. It’s at twenty to one at present, and the odds are likely to lengthen. Now if you were to put a thousand on him to win and he won, why you’d be rich, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, so I would. How marvellous. D’you know, I think I’ll do that. It’s a _very_ good idea. How can I do it?’

‘Just you give me the thousand and I’ll arrange it.’

‘I say, that’s awfully nice of you.’

‘Not at all.’

‘No, really, I think that’s frightfully nice of you. Look, here’s the money. Have a drink, won’t you?’

‘No, you have one with me.’

‘I said it first.’

‘Let’s both have one, then.’

‘Wait a minute though, I must go and telephone about this.’

He rang up the Ritz and got on to Nina.

‘Darling, you do telephone a lot, don’t you?’

‘Nina, I’ve something very important to say.’

‘Yes, darling.’

‘Nina, have you heard of a horse called Indian Runner?’

‘Yes, I think so. Why?’

‘What sort of a horse is it?’

‘My dear, quite the worst sort of horse. Mary Mouse’s mother owns it.’

‘Not a good horse?’

‘No.’

‘Not likely to win the November Handicap, I mean.’

‘Quite sure not to. I don’t suppose it’ll run even. Why?’

‘I say, Nina, d’you know I don’t think we shall be able to get married after all.’

‘Why not, my sweet?’

‘You see, I’ve put my thousand pounds on Indian Runner.’

‘That was silly. Can’t you get it back?’

‘I gave it to a Major.’

‘What sort of a Major?’

‘Rather a drunk one. I don’t know his name.’

‘Well, I should try and catch him. I must go back and eat now. Good-bye.’

But when he got back to Lottie’s parlour the Major was gone.

‘What Major?’ said Lottie, when he asked about him. ‘I never saw a Major.’

‘The one you introduced me to in the corner.’

‘How d’you know he’s a Major?’

‘You said he was.’

‘My dear boy, I’ve never seen him before. Now I come to think of it, he did look like a Major, didn’t he? But this sweet little girlie here is telling me a story. Go on, my dear. I can hardly bear to hear it, it’s so wicked.’

While Miss Runcible finished her story (which began to sound each time she told it more and more like the most lubricious kind of anti-Turkish propaganda) the ex-King of Ruritania told Adam about a Major _he_ had known, who had come from Prussia to reorganize the Ruritanian Army. He had disappeared south, taking with him all the mess plate of the Royal Guard, and the Lord Chamberlain’s wife, and a valuable pair of candlesticks from the Chapel Royal.

By the time Miss Runcible had finished, Lottie was in a high state of indignation.

‘The very idea of it,’ she said. ‘The dirty hounds. And I used to know your poor father, too, before you were born _or_ thought of. I’ll talk to the Prime Minister about this,’ she said, taking up the telephone. ‘Give me Outrage,’ she said to the exchange boy. ‘He’s up in number twelve with a Japanese.’

‘Outrage isn’t Prime Minister, Lottie.’

‘Of course he is. Didn’t Doge say so. . . . Hullo, is that Outrage? This is Lottie. A fine chap you are, I don’t think. Tearing the clothes off the back of a poor innocent girl.’

Lottie prattled on.

Mr Outrage had finished dinner, and, as a matter of fact, the phrasing of this accusation was not wholly inappropriate to his mood. It was some minutes before he began to realize that all this talk was only about Miss Runcible. By that time Lottie’s flow of invective had come to an end, but she finished finely.

‘Outrage your name, and Outrage your nature,’ she said, banging down the receiver. ‘And that’s what I think of _him_. Now how about a little drink?’

But her party was breaking up. The Major was gone. Judge Skimp was sleeping, his fine white hair in an ash-tray. Adam and Miss Runcible were talking about where they would dine. Soon only the King remained. He gave her his arm with a grace he had acquired many years ago; far away in his sunny little palace, under a great chandelier which scattered with stars of light like stones from a broken necklace, a crimson carpet woven with a pattern of crowned ciphers.

So Lottie and the King went in to dinner together.

Upstairs in No. 12, which is a suite of notable grandeur, Mr Outrage was sliding back down the path of self-confidence he had so laboriously climbed. He really would have brought matters to a crisis if it had not been for that telephone, he told himself, but now the Baroness was saying she was sure he was busy, must be wanting her to go: would he order her car.

It was so difficult. For a European the implications of an invitation to dinner _tête-à-tête_ in a private room at Shepheard’s were definitely clear. Her acceptance on the first night of his return to England had thrown him into a flutter of expectation. But all through dinner she had been so self-possessed, so supremely social. Yet, surely, just before the telephone rang, surely then, when they left the table and moved to the fire, there had been _something_ in the atmosphere. But you never know with Orientals. He clutched his knees and said in a voice which sounded very extraordinary to him, must she go, it was lovely after a fortnight, and then, desperately, he had thought of her in Paris such a lot. (Oh, for words, words! That massed treasury of speech that was his to squander at will, to send bowling and spinning in golden pieces over the floor of the House of Commons; that glorious largesse of vocables he cast far and wide, in ringing handfuls about his constituency!)

The little Baroness Yoshiwara, her golden hands clasped in the lap of her golden Paquin frock, sat where she had been sent, more puzzled than Mr Outrage, waiting for orders. What did the clever Englishman want? If he was busy with his telephone, why did he not send her away; tell her another time to come: if he wanted to be loved, why did he not tell her to come over to him? Why did he not pick her out of her red plush chair and sit her on his knee? Was she, perhaps, looking ugly to-night? She had thought not. It was so hard to know what these Occidentals wanted.

Then the telephone rang again.

‘Will you hold on a minute? Father Rothschild wants to speak to you,’ said a voice. ‘. . . Is that you, Outrage? Will you be good enough to come round and see me as soon as you can? There are several things which I must discuss with you.’

‘Really, Rothschild . . . I don’t see why I should. I have a guest.’

‘The baroness had better return immediately. The waiter who brought you your coffee has a brother at the Japanese Embassy.’

‘Good God, has he? But why don’t you go and worry Brown? He’s P.M., you know, not me.’

‘You will be in office to-morrow. . . . As soon as possible, please, at my usual address.’

‘Oh, all right.’

‘Why, of course.’

_Chapter Four_

At Archie Schwert’s party the fifteenth Marquess of Vanburgh, Earl Vanburgh de Brendon, Baron Brendon, Lord of the Five Isles and Hereditary Grand Falconer to the Kingdom of Connaught, said to the eighth Earl of Balcairn, Viscount Erdinge, Baron Cairn of Balcairn, Red Knight of Lancaster, Count of the Holy Roman Empire and Chenonceaux Herald to the Duchy of Aquitaine, ‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Isn’t this a repulsive party? What are you going to say about it?’ for they were both of them, as it happened, gossip writers for the daily papers.

‘I’ve just telephoned my story through,’ said Lord Balcairn. ‘And now I’m going, thank God.’

‘I can’t think of what to say,’ said Lord Vanburgh. ‘My editress said yesterday she was tired of seeing the same names over and over again—and here they are again, all of them. There’s Nina Blount’s engagement being broken off, but she’s not got any publicity value to speak of. Agatha Runcible’s usually worth a couple of paragraphs, but they’re featuring her as a front-page news story to-morrow over this Customs House business.’

‘I made rather a good thing over Edward Throbbing being in a log shanty in Canada which he built himself with the help of one Red Indian. I thought that was fairly good because, you see, I could contrast that with Miles being dressed as a Red Indian to-night, don’t you think so, or don’t you?’

‘I say, that’s rather good, may I use it?’

‘Well, you can have the shanty, but the Red Indian’s mine.’

‘Where is he actually?’

‘Heaven knows, Government House at Ottawa, I think.’

‘Who’s that awful-looking woman? I’m sure she’s famous in some way. It’s not Mrs Melrose Ape, is it? I heard she was coming.’

‘Who?’

‘That one. Making up to Nina.’

‘Good lord, no. She’s no one. Mrs Panrast she’s called now.’

‘She seems to know you.’

‘Yes, I’ve known her all my life. As a matter of fact, she’s my mother.’

‘My dear, how too shaming. D’you mind if I put that in?’

‘I’d sooner you didn’t. The family can’t bear her. She’s been divorced twice since then, you know.’

‘My dear, of course not, I quite understand.’

Five minutes later he was busy at the telephone dictating his story. ‘. . . Orchid stop, new paragraph. One of the most striking women in the room was Mrs Panrast—P-A-N-R-A-S-T-, no, T for telephone, you know—formerly Countess of Balcairn. She dresses with that severely masculine chic, italics, which American women know so well how to assume, stop. Her son, comma, the present Earl, comma, was with her, stop. Lord Balcairn is one of the few young men about town. . . .

‘. . . the Hon. Miles Malpractice was dressed as a Red Indian. He is at present living in the house of his brother, Lord Throbbing, at which yesterday’s party was held. His choice of costume was particularly—what shall I say? hullo, yes—was particularly piquant, italics, since the latest reports of Lord Throbbing say that he is living in a log shack in Canada which he built with his own hands, aided by one Red Indian servant, stop. . . .’

You see, that was the kind of party Archie Schwert’s party was.

Miss Mouse (in a very enterprising frock by Cheruit) sat on a chair with her eyes popping out of her head. She never _could_ get used to so much excitement, never. To-night she had brought a little friend with her—a Miss Brown—because it was so much more fun if one had some one to talk to. It was too thrilling to see all that dull money her father had amassed, metamorphosed in this way into so much glitter and noise and so many bored young faces. Archie Schwert, as he passed, champagne bottle in hand, paused to say, ‘How are you, Mary darling? Quite all right?’

‘That’s Archie Schwert,’ said Miss Mouse to Miss Brown. ‘Isn’t he too clever?’

‘Is he?’ said Miss Brown, who would have liked a drink, but didn’t know quite how to set about it. ‘You _are_ lucky to know such amusing people, Mary darling. I never see any one.’

‘Wasn’t the invitation clever? Johnnie Hoop wrote it.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose it was. But you know, was it dreadful of me, I hadn’t heard of any of the names.’[A]

-----

[A] Perhaps it should be explained—there were at this time three sorts of formal invitation card; there was the nice sensible copybook hand sort with a name and _At Home_ and a date and time and address; then there was the sort that came from Chelsea, _Noel and Audrey are having a little whoopee on Saturday evening: do please come and bring a bottle too, if you can_; and finally there was the sort that Johnnie Hoop used to adapt from _Blast_ and Marinetti’s _Futurist Manifesto_. These had two columns of close print; in one was a list of all the things Johnnie hated, and in the other all the things he thought he liked. Most of the parties which Miss Mouse financed had invitations written by Johnnie Hoop.

-----

‘My dear, of course you have,’ said Miss Mouse, feeling somewhere in her depths—those unplumbed places in Miss Mouse’s soul—a tiny, most unaccustomed flicker of superiority; for she had gone through that invitation word by word in papa’s library some days ago and knew all about it.

She almost wished in this new mood of exaltation that she had come to the party in fancy dress. It was called a Savage party, that is to say that Johnnie Hoop had written on the invitation that they were to come dressed as savages. Numbers of them had done so; Johnnie himself in a mask and black gloves represented the Maharanee of Pukkapore, somewhat to the annoyance of the Maharajah, who happened to drop in. The real aristocracy, the younger members of those two or three great brewing families which rule London, had done nothing about it. They had come on from a dance and stood in a little group by themselves, aloof, amused but not amusing. Pit-a-pat went the heart of Miss Mouse. How she longed to tear down her dazzling frock to her hips and dance like a Bacchante before them all. One day she would surprise them all, thought Miss Mouse.

There was a famous actor making jokes (but it was not so much what he said as the way he said it that made the people laugh who did laugh). ‘I’ve come to the party as a wild widower,’ he said. They were that kind of joke—but, of course, he made a droll face when he said it.

Miss Runcible had changed into Hawaiian costume and was the life and soul of the evening.

She had heard some one say something about an Independent Labour Party, and was furious that she had not been asked.

There were two men with a lot of explosive powder taking photographs in another room. Their flashes and bangs had rather a disquieting effect on the party, causing a feeling of tension, because every one looked negligent and said what a bore the papers were, and how _too_ like Archie to let the photographers come, but most of them as a matter of fact wanted dreadfully to be photographed and the others were frozen with unaffected terror that they might be taken unawares and then their mamas would know where they had been when they said they were at the Bicesters’ dance, and then there would be a row again, which was so _exhausting_, if nothing else.

There were Adam and Nina getting rather sentimental.

‘D’you know,’ she said, pulling out a lump, ‘I’d quite made up my mind that your hair was dark?’ Archie Schwert, pausing with a bottle of champagne, said, ‘Don’t be so sadistic, Nina.’

‘Go away, hog’s rump,’ said Adam, in Cockney, adding, in softer tones, ‘Are you disappointed?’

‘Well, no, but it’s rather disconcerting getting engaged to some one with dark hair and finding it’s fair.’

‘Anyway, we aren’t engaged any more, are we—or are we?’

‘I’m not sure that we’re not. How much money _have_ you, Adam?’

‘Literally, none, my dear. Poor Agatha had to pay for dinner as it was, and God knows what I’m going to do about Lottie Crump’s bill.’

‘Of course, you know—Adam, don’t fall asleep—there’s always papa. I believe he’s really much richer than he looks. He might give us some money until your books start paying.’

‘You know, if I wrote a book a month I should be free of that contract in a year. . . . I hadn’t thought of that before. I don’t at all see why I shouldn’t do that, do you? . . . or do you?’

‘Of course not, darling. I’ll tell you what. We’ll go down and see papa to-morrow, shall we?’

‘Yes, that would be divine, darling.’

‘Adam, don’t go to sleep.’

‘Sorry, darling, what I meant was that that would be divine.’

And he went to sleep for a little, with his head in her lap.

‘Pretty as a picture,’ said Archie, in Cockney, passing with a bottle of champagne in his hand.

‘Wake up, Adam,’ said Nina, pulling out more hair. ‘It’s time to go.’

‘That would be divine. . . . I say, have I been asleep?’

‘Yes, for hours and hours. You looked rather sweet.’

‘And you sat there. . . . I say, Nina, you are getting sentimental. . . . Where are we going?’

There were about a dozen people left at the party; that hard kernel of gaiety that never breaks. It was about three o’clock.

‘Let’s go to Lottie Crump’s and have a drink,’ said Adam.

So they all got into two taxicabs and drove across Berkeley Square to Dover Street. But at Shepheard’s the night porter said that Mrs Crump had just gone to bed. He thought that Judge Skimp was still up with some friends; would they like to join them? They went up to Judge Skimp’s suite, but there had been a disaster there with a chandelier that one of his young ladies had tried to swing on. They were bathing her forehead with champagne; two of them were asleep.

So Adam’s party went out again, into the rain.

‘Of course, there’s always the Ritz,’ said Archie. ‘I believe the night porter can usually get one a drink.’ But he said it in the sort of voice that made all the others say, no, the Ritz was too, too boring at that time of night.

They went to Agatha Runcible’s house, which was quite near, but she found that she’d lost her latchkey, so that was no good. Soon some one would say those fatal words, ‘Well, I think it’s time for me to go to bed. Can I give any one a lift to Knightsbridge?’ and the party would be over.

But instead a little breathless voice said, ‘Why don’t you come to _my_ house?’

It was Miss Brown.

So they all got into taxicabs again and drove rather a long way to Miss Brown’s house. She turned on the lights in a sombre dining-room and gave them glasses of whisky and soda. (She turned out to be rather a good hostess, though over-zealous.) Then Miles said he wanted something to eat, so they all went downstairs into a huge kitchen lined with every shape of pot and pan and found some eggs and some bacon and Miss Brown cooked them. Then they had some more whisky upstairs and Adam feel asleep again. Presently Vanburgh said, ‘D’you mind if I use the telephone? I must just send the rest of my story to the paper.’ Miss Brown took him to a study that looked almost like an office, and he dictated the rest of his column, and then he came back and had some more whisky.

It was a lovely evening for Miss Brown. Flushed with successful hospitality, she trotted from guest to guest, offering here a box of matches, there a cigar, there a fruit from the enormous gilt dishes on the sideboard. To think that all these brilliant people, whom she had heard so much about, with what envy, from Miss Mouse, should be here in papa’s dining-room, calling her ‘my dear’ and ‘darling’. And when at last they said they really had to go, Miss Runcible said, ‘Well, _I_ can’t go, because I’ve lost my latchkey. D’you mind awfully if I sleep here?’

Miss Brown, her heart in her mouth, but in the most natural way possible, said, ‘Of course not, Agatha darling, that would be divine.’

And then Miss Runcible said, ‘How too divine of you, darling.’

_Rapture!_

At half-past nine the next morning the Brown family came down to breakfast in the dining-room.

There were four quiet girls (of whom the Miss Brown who had given the party was the youngest), their brother worked in a motor shop and had had to get off early. They were seated at the table when their mama came down.

‘Now, children,’ she said, ‘do try to remember to talk to your father at breakfast. He was quite hurt yesterday. He feels out of things. It’s so easy to bring him into the conversation if you take a little trouble, and he does so enjoy hearing about everything.’

‘Yes, Mama,’ they said. ‘We do try, you know.’

‘And what was the Bicesters’ dance like, Jane?’ she said, pouring out some coffee. ‘Did you have a good time?’

‘It was just too divine,’ said the youngest Miss Brown.

‘It was _what_, Jane?’

‘I mean it was _lovely_, Mama.’

‘So I should think. You girls are very lucky nowadays. There were not nearly so many dances when I was your age. Perhaps two a week in the season, you know, but _none_ before Christmas ever.’

‘Mama.’

‘Yes, Jane.’

‘Mama. I asked a girl to stay the night.’

‘Yes, dear. When? We’re rather full up, you know.’

‘Last night, Mama.’

‘What an extraordinary thing to do. Did she accept?’

‘Yes, she’s here now.’

‘_Well_. . . . Ambrose, will you tell Mrs Sparrow to put on another egg?’

‘I’m very sorry, my lady, Mrs Sparrow can’t understand it, but there _are_ no eggs this morning. She thinks there must have been burglars.’

‘Nonsense, Ambrose, who ever heard of burglars coming into a house to steal eggs?’

‘The shells were all over the floor, my lady.’

‘I see. That’s all, thank you, Ambrose. Well, Jane, has your guest eaten all our eggs too?’

‘Well, I’m afraid she has . . . at least . . . I mean.’

At this moment Agatha Runcible came down to breakfast. She was not looking her best really in the morning light.

‘Good morning, all,’ she said in Cockney. ‘I’ve found the right room at last. D’you know, I popped into a study or something. There was a sweet old boy sitting at a desk. He _did_ look surprised to see me. Was it your papa?’

‘This is Mama,’ said Jane.

‘How are you?’ said Miss Runcible. ‘I say, I think it’s quite too sweet of you to let me come down to breakfast like this.’ (It must be remembered that she was still in Hawaiian costume.) ‘Are you sure you’re not _furious_ with me? All this is really much more embarrassing for _me_, isn’t it, don’t you think . . . or don’t you?’

‘Do you take tea or coffee?’ at last Jane’s mother managed to say. ‘Jane, dear, give your friend some breakfast.’ For in the course of a long public life she had formed the opinion that a judicious offer of food eased most social situations.

Then Jane’s father came in.

‘Martha, the most extraordinary thing! . . . I think I must be losing my reason. I was in my study just now going over that speech for this afternoon, when suddenly the door opened and in came a sort of dancing Hottentot woman half-naked. It just said, “Oh, how shy-making,” and then disappeared, and . . . oh . . .’ For he had suddenly caught sight of Miss Runcible ‘. . . oh . . . how do you do? . . . How . . .’

‘I don’t think you have met my husband before.’

‘Only for a second,’ said Miss Runcible.

‘I hope you slept well,’ said Jane’s father desperately.

‘Martha never told me we had a guest. Forgive me if I appeared inhospitable . . . I—er . . . Oh, why doesn’t somebody else say something.’

Miss Runcible, too, was feeling the strain. She picked up the morning paper.

‘Here’s something terribly funny,’ she said, by way of making conversation. ‘Shall I read it to you?’

‘“_Midnight Orgies at No. 10._” My dear, isn’t that divine? Listen, “_What must be the most extraordinary party of the little season took place in the small hours of this morning at No. 10, Downing Street. At about 4 a.m. the policemen who are always posted outside the Prime Minister’s residence were surprised to witness_”—Isn’t this too amusing—“_the arrival of a fleet of taxis, from which emerged a gay throng in exotic fancy dress_”—How I should have loved to have seen it. Can’t you imagine what they were like?—“_the hostess of what was described by one of the guests as the brightest party the Bright Young People have yet given, was no other than Miss Jane Brown, the youngest of the Prime Minister’s four lovely daughters. The Honourable Agatha . . ._” Why, what an extraordinary thing. . . . Oh, my God!’

Suddenly light came flooding in on Miss Runcible’s mind as once when, in her débutante days, she had gone behind the scenes at a charity matinée, and returning had stepped through the wrong door and found herself in a blaze of flood-lights on the stage in the middle of the last act of _Othello_. ‘Oh, my God!’ she said, looking round the Brown breakfast table. ‘Isn’t that just too bad of Vanburgh. He’s always doing that kind of thing. It really would serve him right if we complained and he lost his job, don’t you think so, Sir James . . . or . . . don’t you?’

Miss Runcible paused and met the eyes of the Brown family once more.

‘Oh, dear,’ she said, ‘this really is all too bogus.’

Then she turned round and, trailing garlands of equatorial flowers, fled out of the room and out of the house to the huge delight and profit of the crowd of reporters and Press photographers who were already massed round the historic front door.

_Chapter Five_

Adam woke up feeling terribly ill. He rang his bell once or twice, but nobody came. Later he woke up again and rang the bell. The Italian waiter appeared, undulating slightly in the doorway. Adam ordered breakfast. Lottie came in and sat on his bed.

‘Had a nice breakfast, dear?’ she said.

‘Not yet,’ said Adam. ‘I’ve only just woken up.’

‘That’s right,’ said Lottie. ‘Nothing like a nice breakfast. There was a young lady for you on the ’phone, but I can’t remember what it was she said at the minute. We’ve all been upside down this morning. Such a fuss. Had the police in, we have, ever since I don’t know what time, drinking up my wine and asking questions and putting their noses where they’re not wanted. All because Flossie must needs go and swing on the chandelier. She never had any sense, Flossie. Well, she’s learned her lesson now, poor girl. Whoever heard of such a thing—swinging on a chandelier. Poor Judge What’s-his-name is in a terrible state about it. I said to him it’s not so much the price of the chandelier, I said. What money can make, money can mend, I said, and that’s the truth, isn’t it, dear? But what I mind, I said, is having a death in the house and all the fuss. It doesn’t do _any one_ any good having people killing theirselves in a house like Flossie did. Now what may _you_ want, my Italian queen?’ said Lottie as the waiter came in with a tray, the smell of kippers contending with _nuit de Noel_ rather disagreeably.

‘Gentleman’s breakfast,’ said the waiter.

‘And how many _more_ breakfasts do you think he wants, I should like to know? He’s had his breakfast hours ago while you were powdering your nose downstairs, haven’t you, dear?’

‘No,’ said Adam, ‘as a matter of fact, no.’

‘There, do you hear what the gentleman says? _He_ doesn’t want two breakfasts. Don’t stand there wiggling your behind at me. Take it away quick or I’ll catch you such a smack. . . . That’s just the way—once you get the police in every one gets all upset. There’s that boy brings you two breakfasts and I dare say there’s some poor fellow along the passage somewhere who hasn’t had any breakfast at all. You can’t get anywhere without a nice breakfast. Half the young fellows as come here now don’t have anything except a _cachet Faivre_ and some orange juice. It’s not right,’ said Lottie, ‘and I’ve spoken to that boy about using scent twenty times if I’ve spoken once.’

The waiter’s head appeared, and with it another wave of _nuit de Noel_.

‘If you please, madam, the inspectors want to speak to you downstairs, madam.’

‘All right, my little bird of paradise, I’ll be there.’

Lottie trotted away and the waiter came sidling back bearing his tray of kippers and leering at Adam with a horrible intimacy.

‘Turn on my bath, will you, please,’ said Adam.

‘Alas, there is a gentleman asleep in the bath. Shall I wake him?’

‘No, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Will that be all, sir?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

The waiter stood about fingering the brass knobs at the end of the bed, smiling ingratiatingly. Then he produced from under his coat a gardenia, slightly browned at the edges. (He had found it in an evening coat he had just been brushing.)

Would the signor perhaps like a buttonhole? . . . Madame Crump was so severe . . . it was nice sometimes to be able to have a talk with the gentlemen . . .

‘No,’ said Adam. ‘Go away.’ For he had a headache.

The waiter sighed deeply, and walked with pettish steps to the door; sighed again and took the gardenia to the gentleman in the bathroom.

Adam ate some breakfast. No kipper, he reflected, is ever as good as it smells; how this too earthly contact with flesh and bone spoiled the first happy exhilaration; if only one could live, as Jehovah was said to have done, on the savour of burnt offerings. He lay back for a little in his bed thinking about the smells of food, of the greasy horror of fried fish and the deeply moving smell that came from it; of the intoxicating breath of bakeries and the dullness of buns. . . . He planned dinners of enchanting aromatic foods that should be carried under the nose, snuffed and thrown to the dogs . . . endless dinners, in which one could alternate flavour with flavour from sunset to dawn without satiety, while one breathed great draughts of the bouquet of old brandy. . . . Oh for the wings of a dove, thought Adam, wandering a little from the point as he fell asleep again (every one is liable to this ninetyish feeling in the early morning after a party).

Presently the telephone by Adam’s bed began ringing.

‘Hullo, yes.’

‘Lady to speak to you. . . . Hullo, is that you, Adam?’

‘Is that Nina?’

‘How are you, my darling?’

‘_Oh, Nina. . . ._’

‘My poor sweet, I feel like that, too. Listen, angel. You haven’t forgotten that you’re going to see my papa to-day, have you . . . or have you? I’ve just sent him a wire to say that you’re going to lunch with him. D’you know where he lives?’

‘But you’re coming too?’

‘Well, no. I don’t think I will, if you don’t mind. . . . I’ve got rather a pain.’

‘My dear, if you _knew_ what a pain I’ve got. . . .’

‘Yes, but that’s different, darling. Anyway, there’s no object in our both going.’

‘But what am I to say?’

‘_Darling_, don’t be tiresome. You know perfectly well. Just ask him for some money.’

‘Will he like that?’

‘Yes, darling, of course he will. Why will you go _on_? I’ve got to get up now. Good-bye. Take care of yourself. . . . Ring me up when you get back and tell me what papa said. By the way, have you seen the paper this morning?—there’s something so funny about last night. _Too_ bad of Van. Good-bye.’

While Adam was dressing, he realized that he did not know where he was to go. He rang up again. ‘By the way, Nina, where does your papa live?’

‘Didn’t I tell you? It’s a house called Doubting, and it’s all falling down really. You go to Aylesbury by train and then take a taxi. They’re the most expensive taxis in the world, too. . . . Have you got any money?’

Adam looked on the dressing-table: ‘About seven shillings,’ he said.

‘My dear, that’s not enough. You’ll have to make poor papa pay for the taxi.’

‘Will he like that?’

‘Yes, of course, he’s an angel.’

‘I wish you’d come too, Nina.’

‘Darling, I told you. I’ve got such a pain.’

Downstairs, as Lottie had said, everything was upside down. That is to say that there were policemen and reporters teeming in every corner of the hotel, each with a bottle of champagne and a glass. Lottie, Doge, Judge Skimp, the Inspector, four plain-clothes men and the body were in Judge Skimp’s suite.

‘What is _not_ clear to me, sir,’ said the Inspector, ‘is what _prompted_ the young lady to swing on the chandelier. Not wishing to cause offence, sir, and begging your pardon, was she . . . ?’

‘Yes,’ said Judge Skimp, ‘she was.’

‘_Exactly_,’ said the Inspector. ‘A clear case of misadventure, eh, Mrs Crump? There’ll have to be an inquest, of course, but I think probably I shall be able to arrange things so that there is no mention of your name in the case, sir . . . well, that’s very kind of you, Mrs Crump, perhaps just one more glass.’

‘Lottie,’ said Adam, ‘can you lend me some money?’

‘Money, dear? Of course. Doge, have you got any money?’

‘I was asleep at the time myself, mum, and was not even made aware of the occurrence until I was called this morning. Being slightly deaf, the sound of the disaster . . .’

‘Judge What’s-your-name, got any money?’

‘I should take it as a great privilege if I could be of any assistance . . .’

‘That’s right, give some to young Thingummy here. That all you want, deary? Don’t run away. We’re just thinking of having a little drink. . . . No, not that wine, dear, it’s what we keep for the police. I’ve just ordered a better bottle if my young butterfly would bring it along.’

Adam had a glass of champagne, hoping it would make him feel a little better. It made him feel much worse.

Then he went to Marylebone. It was Armistice Day, and they were selling artificial poppies in the streets. As he reached the station it struck eleven and for two minutes all over the country every one was quiet and serious. Then he went to Aylesbury, reading on the way Balcairn’s account of Archie Schwert’s party. He was pleased to see himself described as ‘the brilliant young novelist’, and wondered whether Nina’s papa read gossip paragraphs, and supposed not. The two women opposite him in the carriage obviously did.

‘I no sooner opened the paper,’ said one, ‘than I was on the ’phone _at once_ to all the ladies of the committee, and we’d sent off a wire to our Member before one o’clock. We know how to make things hum at the Bois. I’ve got a copy of what we sent. Look. _Members of the Committee of the Ladies’ Conservative Association at Chesham Bois wish to express their extreme displeasure at reports in this morning’s paper of midnight party at No. 10. They call upon Captain Crutwell_—that’s our Member; such a nice stamp of man—_strenuously to withhold support to Prime Minister_. It cost nearly four shillings, but, as I said at the time, it was not a moment to spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar. Don’t you agree, Mrs Ithewaite?’

‘I do, indeed, Mrs Orraway-Smith. It is clearly a case in which a mandate from the constituencies is required. I’ll talk to our chairwoman at Wendover.’

‘Yes, do, Mrs Ithewaite. It is in a case like this that the woman’s vote can count.’

‘If it’s a choice between my moral judgement and the nationalization of banking, I prefer nationalization, if you see what I mean.’

‘Exactly what I think. Such a terrible example to the lower classes, _apart from everything_.’

‘That’s what I mean. There’s our Agnes, now. How can I stop her having young men in the kitchen when she knows that Sir James Brown has parties like that at all hours of the night. . . .’

They were both wearing hats like nothing on earth, which bobbed and nodded as they spoke.

At Aylesbury Adam got into a Ford taxi and asked to be taken to a house called Doubting.

‘Doubting ’All?’

‘Well, I suppose so. Is it falling down?’

‘Could do with a lick of paint,’ said the driver, a spotty youth. ‘Name of Blount.’

‘That’s it.’

‘Long way from here Doubting ’All is. Cost you fifteen bob.’

‘All right.’

‘If you’re a commercial, I can tell you straight it ain’t no use going to ’im. Young feller asked me the way there this morning. Driving a Morris. Wanted to sell him a vacuum cleaner. Old boy ’ad answered an advertisement asking for a demonstration. When he got there the old boy wouldn’t even look at it. Can you beat that?’

‘No, I’m not trying to sell him anything—at least not exactly.’

‘Personal visit, perhaps.’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah.’

Satisfied that his passenger was in earnest about the journey, the taxi-driver put on some coats—for it was raining—got out of his seat and cranked up the engine. Presently they started.

They drove for a mile or two past bungalows and villas and timbered public houses to a village in which every house seemed to be a garage and filling station. Here they left the main road and Adam’s discomfort became acute.

At last they came to twin octagonal lodges and some heraldic gate-posts and large wrought-iron gates, behind which could be seen a broad sweep of ill-kept drive.

‘Doubting ’All,’ said the driver.

He blew his horn once or twice, but no lodge-keeper’s wife, aproned and apple-cheeked, appeared to bob them in. He got out and shook the gates reproachfully.

‘Chained-and-locked,’ he said. ‘Try another way.’

They drove on for another mile; on the side of the Hall the road was bordered by dripping trees and a dilapidated stone wall; presently they reached some cottages and a white gate. This they opened and turned into a rough track, separated from the park by low iron railings. There were sheep grazing on either side. One of them had strayed into the drive. It fled before them in a frenzied trot, stopping and looking round over its dirty tail and then plunging on again until its agitation brought it to the side of the path, where they overtook it and passed it.

The track led to some stables, then behind rows of hothouses, among potting-sheds and heaps of drenched leaves, past nondescript outbuildings that had once been laundry and bakery and brewhouse and a huge kennel where once some one had kept a bear, until suddenly it turned by a clump of holly and elms and laurel bushes into an open space that had once been laid with gravel. A lofty Palladian façade stretched before them and in front of it an equestrian statue pointed a baton imperiously down the main drive.

‘’Ere y’are,’ said the driver.

Adam paid him and went up the steps to the front door. He rang the bell and waited. Nothing happened. Presently he rang again. At this moment the door opened.

‘Don’t ring twice,’ said a very angry old man. ‘What do you want?’

‘Is Mr Blount in?’

‘There’s no Mr Blount here. This is Colonel Blount’s house.’

‘I’m sorry. . . . I think the Colonel is expecting me to luncheon.’

‘Nonsense. I’m Colonel Blount,’ and he shut the door.

The Ford had disappeared. It was still raining hard. Adam rang again.

‘Yes,’ said Colonel Blount, appearing instantly.

‘I wonder if you’d let me telephone to the station for a taxi?’

‘Not on the telephone. . . . It’s raining. Why don’t you come in? It’s absurd to walk to the station in this. Have you come about the vacuum cleaner?’

‘No.’

‘Funny, I’ve been expecting a man all the morning to show me a vacuum cleaner. Come in, do. Won’t you stay to luncheon?’

‘I should love to.’

‘Splendid. I get very little company nowadays. You must forgive me for opening the door to you myself. My butler is in bed to-day. He suffers terribly in his feet when it is wet. Both my footmen were killed in the war. . . . Put your hat and coat here. I hope you haven’t got wet. . . . I’m sorry you didn’t bring the vacuum cleaner . . . but never mind. How are you?’ he said, suddenly holding out his hand.

They shook hands and Colonel Blount led the way down a long corridor, lined with marble busts on yellow marble pedestals, to a large room full of furniture, with a fire burning in a fine rococo fireplace. There was a large leather-topped walnut writing-table under a window opening on to a terrace. Colonel Blount picked up a telegram and read it.

‘I’d quite forgotten,’ he said in some confusion. ‘I’m afraid you’ll think me very discourteous, but it is, after all, impossible for me to ask you to luncheon. I have a guest coming on very intimate family business. You understand, don’t you? . . . To tell you the truth, it’s some young rascal who wants to marry my daughter. I must see him alone to discuss settlements.’

‘Well, I want to marry your daughter, too,’ said Adam.

‘What an extraordinary coincidence. Are you sure you do?’

‘Perhaps the telegram may be about me. What does it say?’

‘“_Engaged to marry Adam Symes. Expect him luncheon. Nina._” Are you Adam Symes?’

‘Yes.’

‘My dear boy, why didn’t you say so before, instead of going on about a vacuum cleaner? How are you?’

They shook hands again.

‘If you don’t mind,’ said Colonel Blount, ‘we will keep our business until after luncheon. I’m afraid everything is looking very bare at present. You must come down and see the gardens in the summer. We had some lovely hydrangeas last year. I don’t think I shall live here another winter. Too big for an old man. I was looking at some of the houses they’re putting up outside Aylesbury. Did you see them coming along? Nice little red houses. Bathroom and everything. Quite cheap, too, and near the cinematographs. I hope you are fond of the cinematograph too? The Rector and I go a great deal. I hope you’ll like the Rector. Common little man rather. But he’s got a motor car, useful that. How long are you staying?’

‘I promised Nina I’d be back to-night.’

‘That’s a pity. They change the film at the Electra Palace. We might have gone.’

An elderly woman servant came in to announce luncheon. ‘What is at the Electra Palace, do you know, Mrs Florin?’

‘Greta Garbo in _Venetian Kisses_, I think, sir.’

‘I don’t really think I like Greta Garbo. I’ve tried to,’ said Colonel Blount, ‘but I just don’t.’

They went in to luncheon in a huge dining-room dark with family portraits.

‘If you don’t mind,’ said Colonel Blount, ‘I prefer not to talk at meals.’

He propped a morocco-bound volume of _Punch_ before his plate against a vast silver urn, from which grew a small castor-oil plant.

‘Give Mr Symes a book,’ he said.

Mrs Florin put another volume of _Punch_ beside Adam.

‘If you come across anything really funny read it to me,’ said Colonel Blount.

Then they had luncheon.

They were nearly an hour over luncheon. Course followed course in disconcerting abundance while Colonel Blount ate and ate, turning the leaves of his book and chuckling frequently. They ate hare soup and boiled turbot and stewed sweetbreads and black Bredenham ham with Madeira sauce and roast pheasant and a rum omelette and toasted cheese and fruit. First they drank sherry, then claret, then port. Then Colonel Blount shut his book with a broad sweep of his arm rather as the headmaster of Adam’s private school used to shut the Bible after evening prayers, folded his napkin carefully and stuffed it into a massive silver ring, muttered some words of grace and finally stood up, saying: