any lunch would have been amusing to
Lady Harman in the excitement of her first act of deliberate
disobedience. She had never been out to lunch alone in all her life
before; she experienced a kind of scared happiness, she felt like
someone at Lourdes who has just thrown away crutches. She was seated
between a pink young man with an eyeglass whose place was labelled
"Bertie Trevor" and who was otherwise unexplained, and Mr. Brumley. She
was quite glad to see Mr. Brumley again, and no doubt her eyes showed
it. She had hoped to see him. Miss Sharsper was sitting nearly opposite
to her, a real live novelist pecking observations out of life as a hen
pecks seeds amidst scenery, and next beyond was a large-headed
inattentive fluffy person who was Mr. Keystone the well-known critic.
And there was Agatha Alimony under a rustling vast hat of green-black
cock's feathers next to Sir Markham Crosby, with whom she had been
having an abusive controversy in the _Times_ and to whom quite
elaborately she wouldn't speak, and there was Lady Viping with her
lorgnette and Adolphus Blenker, Horatio's younger and if possible more
gentlemanly brother--Horatio of the _Old Country Gazette_ that is--sole
reminder that there was such a person as Sir Isaac in the world. Lady
Beach-Mandarin's mother and the Swiss governess and the tall but
retarded daughter, Phyllis, completed the party. The reception was
lively and cheering; Lady Beach-Mandarin enfolded her guests in
generosities and kept them all astir like a sea-swell under a squadron,
and she introduced Lady Harman to Miss Alimony by public proclamation
right across the room because there were two lavish tables of
bric-a-brac, a marble bust of old Beach-Mandarin and most of the rest of
the party in the way. And at the table conversation was like throwing
bread, you never knew whom you might hit or who might hit you. (But Lady
Beach-Mandarin produced an effect of throwing whole loaves.) Bertie
Trevor was one of those dancing young men who talk to a woman as though
they were giving a dog biscuits, and mostly it was Mr. Brumley who did
such talking as reached Lady Harman's ear.

Mr. Brumley was in very good form that day. He had contrived to remind
her of all their Black Strand talk while they were still eating _Petites
Bouchees a la Reine_. "Have you found that work yet?" he asked and
carried her mind to the core of her situation. Then they were snatched
up into a general discussion of Bazaars. Si