at football. Farther along sat two Russians who never
spoke, one an owlish young man with glassy eyes and damp hair raked
smoothly back, his companion a woman much older than himself, with
broad cheek-bones and a mouth that was a great blot of scarlet in the
midst of her chalk-white face.

Esther spied the plump, hennaed woman whom she had seen speak to Lady
Clifford that day weeks ago, sitting at a table with another
Frenchwoman equally plump and two men, fat and bald, both wearing a
good deal of jewellery. The younger man, incredibly, had round his
pudgy wrist a bangle set with turquoises! On the other side of this
hilarious party was a large, sober-faced Englishman who looked like a
stockbroker, Roger said, and with him a little humming-bird of a girl,
starry-eyed, infantile--belonging to musical comedy, no doubt. What a
medley!

"Look! Over there----"

Esther touched her companion's arm suddenly.

"Do you see? There's Captain Holliday--and with his fat Spanish
friend. Isn't she dreadful?"

Following her eyes, Roger discovered across the room the redoubtable
Arthur, nonchalantly ordering dinner for his _vis-a-vis_, a colossal,
swarthy creature, dripping with pearls and glittering with diamonds
like a chandelier.

"Spanish, did you say?"

"Yes, from the Argentine. I've seen them together before. It is she
who has offered him the job." She almost added, "And it is she whom
your stepmother is jealous of," but she pulled herself up in time.

"What a lot you seem to know about Holliday," remarked Roger
half-quizzically, half-seriously, eyeing her over the menu.

She laughed cheerfully.

"I do. I told you he interested me--as a type. Caviare or
grape-fruit? Oh, caviare. I feel like it, somehow."

"So do I. And after that what about some _sole specialte de la
maison_? How does that strike you? With a _pigeon en cocotte_ to
follow?"

"Marvellous! I'm glad I'm hungry. I missed tea on purpose."

"So did I miss tea, but for other reasons. I took a bank at
baccarat--they've opened the room--and time ceased to be."

"Did you win?"

"No fear; I was down as usual. What about a simple Bronx to start
with? And do you like a dry champagne?"

"Very dry, thanks!"

"It's a good thing; it saves me buying two kinds. Waiter!"

"I feel this is going to be really a spree," sighed Esther contentedly.
"I have been abstemious for so long. You, too--I notice you confine
yourself to Evian water."