jesty's postmen were delivering mail. Through the gray grime of
a November morning that left a taste of rust in the throat, the
carriers of letters were bearing their cargo to all the corners of that
world which is called London.

There were letters from hospitals asking for funds; there were appeals
from sick people seeking admission to hospital. There were long, legal
letters and little, scented letters lying wonderingly together in the
postman's bag. There were notes from tailors to gentlemen begging to
remind them; and there were answers from gentlemen to their tailors, in
envelopes bearing the crests of Pall Mail clubs, hinting of temporary
embarrassment, but mentioning certain prospects that would shortly
enable them to . . . .

Fat, bulging envelopes, returning manuscripts with editors' regrets,
were on their way to poor devils of scribblers living in the altitude
of unrecognised genius and a garret. There were cringing, fawning
epistles, written with a smirk and sealed with a scowl; some there were
couched in a refinement of cruelty that cut like a knife.

But, as unconcerned as tramps plying contraband between South America
and Mexico, His Majesty's postmen were delivering His Majesty's mail,
with never a thought of the play of human emotions lying behind the
sealed lips of an envelope. If His Majesty's subjects insisted upon
writing to one another, it was obvious that their letters, in some
mysterious way become the property of His Majesty, had to be delivered.

Thus it happened, on a certain November morning in the year 1913, that
six dinner invitations, enclosed in small, square envelopes with a
noble crest on the back, and large, unwieldy writing on the front, were
being carried through His Majesty's fog to six addresses in the West
End of London.

Lady Durwent had decided to give a dinner.

An ordinary hostess merely writes a carelessly formal note stating that
she hopes the recipient will be able to dine with her on a certain
evening. The form of her invitations varies as little as the
conversation at her table. But Lady Durwent was _unusual_. For years
she had endeavoured to impress the fact on London, and by careful
attention to detail had at last succeeded in gaining that reputation.
She was that _rara avis_ among the women of to-day--the hostess who
knows her guests. She never asked any one to dine at her house without
some definite purpose in mind--and, for that matter, her guests neve