"I shouldn't if I were a young lady like you, whose choice must be unlimited," Wingate replied.

"How do you know that it is unlimited?" she demanded. "Perhaps just the people whom I would like to lunch with don't ask me."

"They need encouragement," he suggested.

She laughed into his eyes.

"Do you know anything about the men who need encouragement?" she asked demurely.

He avoided the point and made some casual remark about the changes in London during the last few years. She sighed sorrowfully.

"It has changed for no one so much as me," she murmured. "The war--"

"You lost friends, I suppose?" he ventured.

She closed her eyes.

"Don't!" she whispered. "I never speak of it," she went on, twisting a ring around her fingers nervously, "I don't like it mentioned, but I was really engaged to young Lord Fanleighton."

He murmured a little word of sympathy, and their conversation was momentarily interrupted as she leaned forward to answer an enquiry from her host. Wingate turned to Sarah, who was seated at his other side.

"How dare you neglect me so shamefully!" she asked.

"Let me make amends," he pleaded.

"I am glad you feel penitent, at any rate. I expect Miss Flossie Lane has asked you what you think of her friend, Miss Orford, and told you that she was engaged to Lord Fanleighton."

"What a hearing!" he murmured.

"Don't be silly," she replied. "I couldn't hear a word, but I know her stock in trade."

There was a little stir at the farther end of the table. Lord Dredlinton had left his place and was standing behind Phipps, with his hands upon his shoulders. He seemed to be shouting something in his ear. At that moment he recognised Wingate. He staggered up the farther side of the table towards him, b.u.t.ting into a waiter on the way and pausing for a moment to curse him, Flossie jogged Wingate's elbow.

"What fun!" she whispered. "Here's Lord Dredlinton, absolutely blotto!"

CHAPTER IX

Wingate from the first had a prescience of disagreeable things. There was malice in Dredlinton's pallid face, the ugly twist of his lips and the light in his bloodshot eyes. He paused opposite to them, and leaning his hands on the back of the nearest chair, spoke across the table.

"Hullo, Flossie!" he exclaimed. "How are you, old dear? How are you, Wingate?"

Wingate replied with cold civility, Flossie with a careless nod.

"I do hope," she whispered to her companion, glancing into the mirror which she had just drawn from her bag, "that Lord Dredlinton isn't going to be foolish. He does embarra.s.s me so sometimes."

"I say," Dredlinton went on, "what are you doing here, Wingate? I didn't know this sort of thing was in your line."

Wingate raised his eyebrows but made no response. Dredlinton shook his head reproachfully at Miss Lane.

"Flossie," he continued, "you ought to know better. Besides, you will waste your time. Mr. Wingate's taste in women is of a very--superior order. Doesn't care about your sort at all. He likes saints. That's right, isn't it, Wingate?"

"You seem to know," was the cool reply.

"Not 't tall sure," Dredlinton went on, balancing himself with difficulty, "that your new conquest would altogether approve of this, you know. Wingate, let me tell you that Flossie is a very dangerous young lady--destroys the peace of everybody--can't sleep myself for thinking of her. Not your sort at all, Wingate. We know your sort, don't we, eh?"

Wingate remained contemptuously silent. Kendrick rose from his place and laid his hand on Dredlinton's shoulder.

"Come and sit down, Dredlinton," he said shortly. "You're making an idiot of yourself."

"Go to h.e.l.l!" the other replied truculently. "Who are you? Just that man's broker, that's all. Want to sell wheat, Wingate, or buy it, eh?"

Wingate looked at him steadily.

"You're drunk," he said. "I should advise you to get a friend to take you home."

"Drunk, am I?" Dredlinton shouted. "What if I am? I'm a better man drunk than you are sober--although she may not think so, eh?"

Wingate looked at him from underneath level brows.

"I should advise you not to mention any names here," he said.

"I like that!" the other scoffed. "Not to mention any names, eh? He'll forbid me next to talk about my own wife."

"You'd be a cur if you did," Wingate told him.

A little spot of colour burned in Dredlinton's cheeks. For a moment he showed his teeth. But for Kendrick's restraining arm, he seemed as though he would have thrown himself across the table. Then, with a great effort, he regained command of himself.

"So you won't sell wheat and you won't buy wheat, Mr. American!" he jeered. "I know what you would like to buy, though--and, d.a.m.n it all, there's old Dreadnought Phipps down there--he's a bidder, too--ain't you, Phipps, old boy? What you see in her, either of you, I don't know! She's no use to me."

Phipps rose in his place. Sir Frederick Houstley left his chair and came round to Dredlinton.

"Lord Dredlinton," he said, "I think you had better leave."

"I'll leave when I d.a.m.ned well please!" was the quick reply. "Don't you lose your wool, old Freddy. This is going to be a joke. You listen. I tell you what I'll do. I'm a poor man--devilish poor--and it takes a lot of money to enjoy oneself, nowadays. You're all in this. Sit tight and listen. We'll have an auction."

Wingate rose slowly to his feet, pushed his chair back and stood behind it. Flossie gripped him by the wrist.

"Don't take any notice of him, please, Mr. Wingate," she implored, in an agonised whisper. "For my sake, don't! He's dangerous when he's like this. I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you."

"Look here, Dredlinton," Sir Frederick expostulated, "you are spoiling my party. You don't want to quarrel with me, do you?"

"Quarrel with you, Freddy?" Dredlinton replied, patting him on the back affectionately. "Not I! I'm too fond of you, old dear. You give too nice parties. Always the right sort of people--except for that bounder over there," he went on, nodding his head towards Wingate.

"Then sit down and don't make an a.s.s of yourself," his host begged.