I.

Even _unusual_ dinner-parties begin like ordinary ones. There is the discomfiture of the guest who arrives first, subjected to his hostess's rea.s.surances that he is not really early. After what seems an interminable length of time, during which a score of conversational topics are broached, and both hostess and guest are reduced to a state bordering on mutual animosity, the remainder of the party arrive _en ma.s.se_, as if by collusion. The butler (who likes to chew the cud of reflection between the announcements) is openly pained, while the distracted hostess must manage the introductions, and, as friendships are begun or enmities renewed, endeavour to initiate the new-comer into the subject of conversation immediately preceding his or her entrance.

As the good woman's subconscious mind is in the kitchen, and as she is constantly interrupted by the necessity of greeting new arrivals, she usually succeeds in mystifying every one, and creating that atmosphere of 'nerves' so familiar to denizens of the best sets.

But we had almost forgotten--there is always one guest who is late.

The fateful hour mentioned in the dinner invitation arrives, strikes, and floats down the mists to the eerie catacombs of the Past. The hostess knows that the cook, with arms akimbo, is breathing rebellion, but tries to blot out the awful vision by an extra spurt of hollow gaiety.

Ten minutes pa.s.s.

Conversation flags. The portly bachelor who lives at his club wonders why he didn't have a chop before he came. His fellow-diners try to refrain from the topic, but it is as hopeless as trying to talk to an ex-convict without mentioning jails. Finally, in an abandon of desperation, they all turn inquiringly to the hostess, who, affecting an ease of manner, says pleasantly, 'Dear me! What _can_ have detained Mr. So-and-so? I wonder if we had better go in without him?'

And then he arrives--the jacka.s.s--and in a sublime good-humour! He tells some c.o.c.k-and-bull story about his taxi breaking down, and actually seems to think he's done rather a smart thing in turning up at all. In short, he brings in such an air of geniality and self-appreciation that the guest who arrived first has more than a notion to 'have him out' and send him to a region where dinner-parties are popularly supposed to be unknown.

No--the lot of a lady who gives dinners is not a happy one.

II.

On this Friday night of November in the year 1918, Lady Durwent sat by the fire in the drawing-room and discussed music with Norton Pyford.

Having sacrificed his watch on the altar of art, he had been compelled to rely on appet.i.te, with the result that he arrived just as eight was striking. Lady Durwent did her best, but as she knew nothing of music, nor he anything of anything else, the situation was becoming difficult, when the entrance of Madame Carlotti brought welcome relief.

That lady was wearing a yellow gown rather too tight for her, so that her somewhat ample flesh slightly overran the confines of the garment, giving the effect that she had grown up in the thing and was unable to shed it. This impression was heightened by a mannerism, repeated frequently during the evening, of grasping her very low bodice with her hands, exhausting her breath, pulling the bodice up, and compressing herself into it. It was an innocent enough performance, but invariably left the feeling that she should retire upstairs to do it.

She wore a yellow flower in her hair; her stockings were a rich yellow with a superimposed pattern like strands of fine gold, and her dainty feet were enclosed in a pair of bronzed shoes. As her lips were heavily carmined and her eyes brilliantly dark, Madame Carlotti's was a distinctly illuminating presence.

But the sunniness of her entrance was dimmed by the lack of audience.

She had not expended her genius to throw it away on a strangely dressed young man whose hair fell straight and black over a large collar that had earned a holiday some days before, and whose velvet jacket was minus two b.u.t.tons, the threads of which could still be seen, out-stretched, appealing for their owners' return.

'Lucia, my dear,' said Lady Durwent, just like an ordinary hostess, 'you look' (_sotto voce_) 'simply wonderful! I think you have met Mr.

Norton Pyford, _the_ Norton Pyford, haven't you?'

'Hah d' ye do?' said the Pyford.

'Chairmed,' minced Madame Carlotti.

'Lucia, take this chair by the fire. You must be frozen.'

'Ah, _grazie_, Sybil. What a perfectly meeserable climate you have in this London!'

'Just what I tha-a-y,' bleated Mr. Pyford, sinking into his chair in an apparently boneless heap. 'The other night, at a fella's thupper-party, I'----

'MRS. LE ROY JENNINGS.'

The resolutionist swept into the room clothed in black disorder, much as if she had started to dress in a fit of temper and had been overtaken by a gale.

She knew Madame Carlotti.--She did _not_ know Mr. Norton Pyford, _the_ Norton Pyford.--She was glad to know him.

He muttered something inarticulate, and glancing at the ring of women about him, shrank into his clothes until his collar almost hid his lower lip.

'We were discussing,' said Lady Durwent, vaguely relying on the last sounds retained by her ear--'discussing--suppers.'

'Don't believe in 'em,' said Mrs. Jennings sternly; 'three regular meals--tea at eleven and four, and hot milk with a bit of ginger in it before retiring--are sufficient for any one.'

The Italian took in the forceful figure of the New Woman and smiled with her teeth.

'Madame Jennings,' she said, 'perhaps finds sufficient distraction in just ordinary life--and _una tazza di te_. But we who are not so--_comment dirai-je?_--so self-complete must rely on frivolous things like _una buona cena_.'

'Don't believe in 'em,' reiterated the resolutionist; 'three regular'----

'_Ah, c'est mauvais_,' gesticulated Madame Carlotti, who alternated between Italian and French phrases in London, and kept her best English for the Continent.

'Mr. Pyford,' put in Lady Durwent, descrying a storm on the yellow and black horizon, 'has just written'----

'MR. H. STACKTON DUNCKLEY,' announced the butler, with an appropriate note of _mysterioso_. Lady Durwent summoned a blush, and rose to meet the ardent author, who was dressed in a characterless evening suit with disconsolate legs, and whose chin was heavily powdered to conceal the stubble of beard grown since morning.

'You have come,' she said softly and dramatically.

'I have,' said the writer, bowing low over her hand.

'I rely on you to be discreet,' she murmured.

'Eh?'

'Discreet,' she coquetted. 'People will talk.'

'Let them,' said Mr. Dunckley earnestly.

'Madame Carlotti, I think you know Mr. Dunckley--H. Stackton Dunckley--and you too, Mrs. Le Roy Jennings; you clever people ought to be friends at once.--And I want you to meet Mr. Pyford, _the_'----

'Hah d'ye do?'

'How are you?'

'Ro--splendid, thanks.'

'We were discussing,' said Lady Durwent--'discussing'----

'MR. AUSTIN SELWYN.'

Every one turned to see the guest of the evening, as the hostess rose to meet him. He was a young man on the right side of thirty, with dark, closely brushed hair that thinned slightly at the temples. He was clean-shaven, and his light-brown eyes lay in a smiling setting of quizzical good-humour. He was of rather more than medium height, with well-poised shoulders; and though a firmness of lips and jaw gave a suggestion of hardness, the engaging youthfulness of his eyes and a hearty smile that crinkled the bridge of his nose left a pleasant impression of frankness, mingled with a certain _navete_.

'Mr. Selwyn,' said Lady Durwent, 'I knew you would want to meet some of London's--I should say some of England's--accomplished people.'

'_Oime_! I am afraid that obleeterates me,' smiled Madame Carlotti, whose social charm was rising fast at the sight of a good-looking stranger.

'No, indeed, Lucia,' effused the hostess. 'To be the personification of Italy in dreary London is more than an accomplishment; it--it'----