He's so dilletanty--and Mr.
McKean. He's the young man upstairs. Have you met him?"

Joan hadn't: except once on the stairs when, to avoid having to pass her,
he had gone down again and out into the street. From the doorstep she
had caught sight of his disappearing coat-tails round the corner.
Yielding to impishness, she had run after him, and his expression of
blank horror when, glancing over his shoulder, he found her walking
abstractedly three yards behind him, had gladdened all her evening.

Joan recounted the episode--so far as the doorstep.

"He tried to be shy with me," said Mrs. Phillips, "but I wouldn't let
him. I chipped him out of it. If he's going to write plays, as I told
him, he will have to get over his fear of a petticoat."

She offered her cheek, and Joan kissed it, somewhat gingerly.

"You won't mind Robert not wearing evening dress," she said. "He never
will if he can help it. I shall just slip on a semi-toilette myself."

Joan had difficulty in deciding on her own frock. Her four evening
dresses, as she walked round them, spread out upon the bed, all looked
too imposing, for what Mrs. Phillips had warned her would be a "homely
affair." She had one other, a greyish-fawn, with sleeves to the elbow,
that she had had made expressly for public dinners and political At
Homes. But that would be going to the opposite extreme, and might seem
discourteous--to her hostess. Besides, "mousey" colours didn't really
suit her. They gave her a curious sense of being affected. In the end
she decided to risk a black crepe-de-chine, square cut, with a girdle of
gold embroidery. There couldn't be anything quieter than black, and the
gold embroidery was of the simplest. She would wear it without any
jewellery whatever: except just a star in her hair. The result, as she
viewed the effect in the long glass, quite satisfied her. Perhaps the
jewelled star did scintillate rather. It had belonged to her mother. But
her hair was so full of shadows: it wanted something to relieve it. Also
she approved the curved line of her bare arms. It was certainly very
beautiful, a woman's arm. She took her gloves in her hand and went down.

Mr. Phillips was not yet in the room. Mrs. Phillips, in apple-green with
an ostrich feather in her hair, greeted her effusively, and introduced
her to her fellow guests. Mr. Airlie was a slight, elegant gentleman of
uncertain age, with sandy hair and beard cut Vandyke fashio