e most gracious autocracy.
She had everything her own way and did everything in her own way. She
was a little social Queen, with a Secretary of State for her Prime
Minister, and she enjoyed her sovereignty exceedingly. One of the great
events of her reign was the institution of what came to be known as the
Langley luncheons.

These luncheons differed from ordinary luncheons in this, that those who
were bidden to them were in the first instance almost always interesting
people--people who had done something more than merely exist, people who
had some other claim upon human recognition than the claim of ancient
name or of immense wealth. In the second place, the people who were
bidden to a Langley luncheon were of the most varied kind, people of the
most different camps in social, in political life. At the Langley table
statesmen who hated each other across the floor of the House sat side by
side in perfect amity. The heir to the oldest dukedom in England met
there the latest champion of the latest phase of democratic socialism;
the great tragedian from the Acropolis met the low comedian from the
Levity on terms of as much equality as if they had met at the Macklin or
the Call-Boy clubs; the President of the Royal Academy was amused by,
and afforded much amusement to, the newest child of genius fresh from
Paris, with the slang of the Chat Noir upon his lips and the scorn of
_les vieux_ in his heart. Whig and Tory, Catholic and Protestant,
millionaire and bohemian, peer with a peerage old at Runnymede and the
latest working-man M.P., all came together under the regal republicanism
of Langley House. Someone said that a party at Langley House always
suggested to him the Day of Judgment.

On the afternoon of the morning on which Sir Rupert's card was left at
Paulo's Hotel, various guests assembled for luncheon in Miss Langley's
Japanese drawing-room. The guests were not numerous--the luncheons at
Langley House were never large parties. Eight, including the host and
hostess, was the number rarely exceeded; eight, including the host and
hostess, made up the number in this instance. Mr. and Mrs. Selwyn, the
distinguished and thoroughly respectable actor and actress, just
returned from their tour in the United States; the Duke and Duchess of
Deptford--the Duchess was a young and pretty American woman; Mr. Soame
Rivers, Sir Rupert's private secretary; and Mr. Hiram Borringer, who had
just returned from one expedition to the South