Part 4 (2/2)

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'----

<script>