“Oh, thank you,” said Chastity, “but I could never leave Mrs. Ape.”
“Well, think it over, child. You’re far too pretty a girl to waste your time singing hymns. Tell that other girl, the redheaded one, that I can probably find a place for her, too.”
“What, Humility? Don’t you have nothing to do with her. She’s a fiend.”
“Well, some men like rough stuff, but I don’t want anyone who makes trouble with the other girls.”
“She makes trouble all right. Look at that bruise.”
“My dear!”
Margot Metroland and Mrs. Ape led the angels up the steps between the orchids and stood them at the back of the platform facing the room. Chastity stood next to Creative Endeavour.
“Please, Chastity, I’m sorry if we hurt you,” said Creative Endeavour. “I didn’t pinch hard, did I?”
“Yes,” said Chastity. “Like hell you did.”
A slightly sticky hand tried to take hers, but she clenched her fist. She would go to South America and work for Lady Metroland … and she wouldn’t say anything about it to Humility either. She glared straight in front of her, saw Mrs. Panrast and dropped her eyes.
The ballroom was filled with little gilt chairs and the chairs with people. Lord Vanburgh, conveniently seated near the door, through which he could slip away to the telephone, was taking them all in. They were almost all, in some way or another, notable. The motives for Margot Metroland’s second marriage2 had been mixed, but entirely worldly; chief among them had been the desire to reestablish her somewhat shaken social position, and her party that night testified to her success, for while many people can entertain the Prime Minister and the Duchess of Stayle and Lady Circumference, and anybody can, and often against her will does, entertain Miles Malpractice and Agatha Runcible, it is only a very confident hostess who will invite both these sets together at the same time, differing, as they do, upon almost all questions of principle and deportment. Standing near Vanburgh, by the door, was a figure who seemed in himself to typify the change that had come over Pastmaster House when Margot Beste-Chetwynd became Lady Metroland; an unobtrusive man of rather less than average height, whose black beard, falling in tight burnished curls, nearly concealed the order of St. Michael and St. George which he wore round his neck; he wore a large signet ring on the little finger of his left hand outside his white glove; there was an orchid in his buttonhole. His eyes, youthful but grave, wandered among the crowd; occasionally he bowed with grace and decision. Several people were asking about him.
“See the beaver with the medal,” said Humility to Faith.
“Who is that very important young man?” asked Mrs. Blackwater of Lady Throbbing.
“I don’t know, dear. He bowed to you.”
“He bowed to you, dear.”
“How very nice … I wasn’t quite sure. … He reminds me a little of dear Prince Anrep.”
“It’s so nice in these days, isn’t it, dearest, to see someone who really looks … don’t you think?”
“You mean the beard?”
“The beard among other things, darling.”
Father Rothschild was conspiring with Mr. Outrage and Lord Metroland. He stopped short in the middle of his sentence.
“Forgive me,” he said, “but there are spies everywhere. That man with the beard, do you know him?”
Lord Metroland thought vaguely he had something to do with the Foreign Office; Mr. Outrage seemed to remember having seen him before.
“Exactly,” said Father Rothschild. “I think it would be better if we continued our conversation in private. I have been watching him. He is bowing across the room to empty places and to people whose backs are turned to him.” The Great Men withdrew to Lord Metroland’s study. Father Rothschild closed the door silently and looked behind the curtains.
“Shall I lock the door?” asked Lord Metroland.
“No,” said the Jesuit. “A lock does not prevent a spy from hearing; but it does hinder us, inside, from catching the spy.”
“Well, I should never have thought of that,” said Mr. Outrage in frank admiration.
“How pretty Nina Blount is,” said Lady Throbbing, busy from the front row with her lorgnette, “but don’t you think, a little changed; almost as though …”
“You notice everything, darling.”
“When you get to our age, dear, there is so little left, but I do believe Miss Blount must have had an experience … she’s sitting next to Miles. You know I heard from Edward tonight. He’s on his way back. It will be a great blow for Miles because he’s been living in Edward’s house all this time. To tell you the truth I’m a little glad because from what I hear from Anne Opalthorpe, who lives opposite, the things that go on … he’s got a friend staying there now. Such an odd man—a dirt-track racer. But then it’s no use attempting to disguise the fact, is there. … There’s Mrs. Panrast … yes, dear, of course you know her, she used to be Eleanor Balcairn … now why does dear Margot ask anyone like that, do you think? … it is not as though Margot was so innocent … and there’s Lord Monomark … yes, the man who owns those amusing papers … they say that he and Margot, but before her marriage, of course (her second marriage, I mean), but you never know, do you, how things crop up again? … I wonder where Peter Pastmaster is? … he never stays to Margot’s parties … he was at dinner, of course, and, my dear, how he drank. … He can’t be more than twenty-one. … Oh, so that is Mrs. Ape. What a coarse face … no dear, of course she can’t hear … she looks like a procureuse … but perhaps I shouldn’t say that here, should I?”
Adam came and sat next to Nina.
“Hullo,” they said to each other.
“My dear, do look at Mary Mouse’s new young man,” said Nina.
Adam looked and saw that Mary was sitting next to the Maharajah of Pukkapore.
“I call
