Toward the end of the month Dorothy and Olive were criticizing the fashions in the windows of Bond Street when somebody slapped her on the back and, turning round with half a thought that she was being called upon to reply to a novel method of attack by Clarehaven, she perceived Sylvia Scarlett. It was typical of Sylvia to greet her like this on meeting her again for the first time after a year, but the old awe of Sylvia prevented her from expressing her dislike of such horseplay in Bond Street, and a sudden shyness drove her into self-a.s.sertion. She began to talk about lunching at Romano's and supping at the Savoy and of the success she had made in "The River Girl" s.e.xtet, to all of which Sylvia listened with a smile until she broke abruptly into her discourse with:

"Look here! A little less of the Queen of Sheba, if you don't mind.

Don't forget I'm one of the blokes as is glad to smell the gratings outside a baker's."

Dorothy did not think this remark particularly amusing; there was quite enough genuine c.o.c.kney to be endured on the stage without having to listen to an exaggerated imitation of it in Bond Street. Olive, however, was laughing, and Dorothy decided to take Sylvia down a peg by asking what she was doing now.

"Resting, Dolly, but always open to a good offer. Same old firm. Lily and Skinner. The original firm makes boots; we mar them. The trouble is that I can't find anything to skin; I tried Rabbit's, the rival boot-shop, but even they wanted cash. However, Lily's quite content to go on resting, so that's all right."

"My dear," exclaimed Dorothy, in affected dismay, "you're not still living with that dreadful girl?"

"Oh, go to h.e.l.l!" said Sylvia, sharply, and strode off down Bond Street.

"What an attractive girl!" Olive exclaimed.

Dorothy stared at her in bewilderment.

"What do _you_ see attractive in _her_?"

"She's just the sort of person who would amuse the great man," Olive declared.

"I'm sorry that I bore him so much."

Olive seized her hand.

"Dorothy," she murmured, reproachfully, "you know you don't bore him. He was only saying yesterday that he wished he could ride with you in the Row."

"You'd better get Sylvia Scarlett to share the flat with you," went on Dorothy.

"How can you say things like that? You know I love you better than anybody in the world. You know how beautiful I think you, how clever, Dorothy; it's really unkind to suggest that any other girl could take your place."

"If you're so anxious to know her," Dorothy continued, "I'll write and ask her to come and see us."

"Dorothy, you quite misunderstand me."

"I shouldn't like you to think I would stand in the way of your meeting anybody you took a fancy to, man or woman."

Olive protested again and again that Dorothy had utterly misjudged her and that she never wished to see Sylvia Scarlett again. The argument lasted so long and the whole question of whether or not Sylvia should be invited to Halfmoon Mansions a.s.sumed such importance that after lunch Dorothy wrote and invited Sylvia, and not merely Sylvia, but Lily as well, to come and have tea with them the next day. She told herself when she had posted the letter that she was probably committing a great folly by introducing to her friends two people who knew so much about her, and she asked herself in amazement what mad obstinacy had led her into such a course of action.

"Most girls would avoid her," she thought. "But if I avoid her, she'll despise me; and I _do_ hate the way she can make people look idiotic."

Dorothy was not accustomed to a.n.a.lyze her emotions much; she was usually too fully occupied with the a.n.a.lysis of her features; but before she went to sleep that night she had admitted to herself that she was thoroughly frightened of Sylvia.

In the morning a messenger-boy brought the answer.

MULBERRY COTTAGE,

TINDERBOX LANE, W.

DEAR DOROTHY,--Rudeness evidently pays, and as Lily is bursting with curiosity to see you, we'll come to tea to-morrow. I'm tremendously impressed by your note-paper. Is the trumpet hanging in the corner a crest or a trade-mark? I thought when I first opened your letter that you had gone into the motor business. "_J'y serai_" is good, but I suggest "I blow my own trumpet" would be better, or, if you must have a French motto, you could change your crest to a whip and put underneath "_Je fais claquer mon fouet_."

But perhaps this would suit me better than you. Lily has buried at least half a dozen Tom Hewitts since last June, so we'll come unaccompanied by any skeletons to your feast. Don't mind my teasing you. I believe you wish me well. I much look forward to hearing your Abyssinian friend singing of Mount Abora. Forgive my allusions to literature and display of idiomatic French. They're the only things I can set off against Romano's and the Savoy.

Yours ever,

SYLVIA.

P.S.--It was decent of you to apologize for what you said about Lily, and perhaps you were right to be a little haughty with me after that remark of mine in the dressing-room at Oxford. I'll try to keep a check on myself in future if you'll be as charming as you know how to be when you choose.

"I'm afraid," said Dorothy, when she read this letter, "that Sylvia has grown rather affected. Poor girl, it will be good for her to meet some nice people again."

She did not read the postscript to Olive, but she was much relieved by it, and she showed her relief by praising Lily's beauty and telling Olive that in taking a fancy to Sylvia she had once more evinced her good taste.

"If one could only cure her of her affectations she would be a charming companion for the great man, but as it is.... We must get some people for this afternoon," she broke off, going to the telephone.

Dorothy took more trouble over Sylvia's party than over anything since she chose the decorations of the flat; difficult though it was, she managed to collect several men whom she supposed to be intelligent, chiefly because they had less money than her other friends. It was like looking for gold in an alms-bag to find in their circle enough men to whose intelligence even Dorothy could subscribe, and she asked herself doubtfully what the great man would have thought of the result. Well, well--Sylvia might be critical, but she had no right to be as critical as that, and perhaps one or two of them were more intelligent than she thought.

Among the men invited that afternoon was Harry Tufton, who had just been sent down from Oxford. Anxious to show himself worthy of his election to the Bullingdon, he had let himself be driven from his wonted gravity and discretion by some ambitious demon, and, after mixing his wine with this fiery spirit, had painted either the dean's nose or the dean's door red--the story varied with his listeners' credulity. Hence his arrival in London, where he had made haste to invite Dorothy out to supper and give her some news of his friend Lord Clarehaven. She had been engaged that evening, and now she bethought herself of asking him to tea. It was a daring move, but somehow she believed that Tufton would appreciate it, and perhaps be impressed by her ability to keep friends with girls like Sylvia and Lily. Nevertheless, it certainly was daring to invite the very person who had seen with his own eyes of what Lily was capable; it was also a temptation to Sylvia's tongue.

Dorothy considered that her party was a success, and she was pleased to observe that Sylvia was evidently struck by the intelligence of a young Liberal journalist called Vernon Townsend. This young man, lately down from Oxford, was delighting the select minority who read a brilliant weekly called _The Point of View_ with his hebdomadal destructiveness as a critic of the drama. The Aristotelian way in which he used to prove in two thousand words winged with scorn that "The River Girl" was not so good a play as "John Gabriel Borkmann" was a great consolation to his readers, who were mostly unacted playwrights. After a column of Townsend's smoke they were sure that they were in the van of progress, riding, one might say, in the engine-driver's cab upon a mighty express that was thundering away from mediocrity. If sometimes in the course of their journey the coal-dust of realism made them look a little dirty, that was a small penalty to pay for riding in front of the common herd.

"It must be jolly to run the funicular up Parna.s.sus," said Sylvia to this young man. "And jolly to drink of the Pierian spring or from the well of truth without either of them leaving a nasty taste in the mouth."

"Very good," he allowed, and laughed with the serious attention that critics give to jokes. "But you must take in _The Point of View_."

"I will. From your description it must have all the feverish brilliance of a young consumptive. I suppose the air on the top of Parna.s.sus is good for this Keats of weekly reviews?"

"That's an extremely intelligent girl," said Mr. Townsend to his hostess. "Why haven't I ever noticed her on the stage?"

Mr. Townsend went often to the Vanity because he was searching for talent; he had a theory that all good actresses and all good plays were born to blush unseen.

"It's a good theory," said Sylvia, "and of course you'll add the audience. One might extract a moral from the fact that they're much more careless about turning down the lights during the performance of a play in Paris than they are in London. Dorothy, Mr. Townsend a.s.sures me that I ought to be a great actress."

Dorothy smiled encouragingly and pa.s.sed on to see that her guests were well supplied with cakes. Yes, the party was going well. Sylvia was entertaining other people and herself being entertained. Lily was sitting languorously back in a deep chair, listening to a young candidate for Parliament whose father had so successfully imposed a patent medicine upon his contemporaries that there seemed no reason why his son should not as successfully cure the body politic. Dorothy frankly admitted Lily's beauty when Olive commented upon it.

"She's like a lovely spray of flowers," said Olive.

Dorothy thought that this was rather an exaggerated simile, and she could not help adding that she hoped Lily would not fade as quickly.

Presently Tufton came up to his hostess and begged her to do him the honor of a little talk.

"Everybody is very happy. Charming little party. Yes," he a.s.sured her.

"But you mustn't tire yourself. Let me get you an ice."

Dorothy was flattered by this almost obsequious manner, and it flashed upon her that he was trying to get in with her, not, as the girls at the theater would have put it, "get off" like most men.

"Your two friends from Oxford are much improved," he began. "Do you remember our little scene after lunch? I felt for you tremendously. It's good of you to carry your old friends along with you on the path to success."

"You think I'm going to be successful?"