ummoning his valet almost
with ill-temper. Yet half his library was the library of a politician,
admirably chosen and exhaustively read.

The footman who answered his call understood his moods and served him at
a look. Ashe complained hotly of the brushing of his dress-clothes, and
worked himself into a fever over the set of his tie. Nevertheless,
before he left he had managed to get from the young man the whole story
of his engagement to the under-housemaid, giving him thereupon some bits
of advice, jocular but trenchant, which James accepted with a readiness
quite unlike his normal behavior in the circles of his class.

II

Ashe took his seat, dined, and saw the Prime Minister. These things took
time, and it was not till past eleven that he presented himself in the
hall of Madame d'Estrees' house in St. James's Place. Most of her guests
were already gathered, but he mounted the stairs together with an old
friend and an old acquaintance, Philip Darrell, one of the ablest
writers of the moment, and Louis Harman, artist and man of fashion, the
friend of duchesses and painter of portraits, a person much in request
in many worlds.

"What a <i>cachet</i> they have, these houses!" said Harman, looking round
him. "St. James's Place is the top!"

"Where else would you expect to find Madame d'Estrees?" asked Darrell,
smiling.

"Yes--what taste she has! However, it was I really who advised her to
take the house."

"Naturally," said Darrell.

Harman threw a dubious look at him, then stopped a moment, and with a
complacent proprietary air straightened an engraving on the staircase
wall.

"I suppose the dear lady has a hundred slaves of the lamp, as usual,"
said Ashe. "You advise her about her house--somebody else helps her to
buy her wine--"

"Not at all, my dear fellow," said Harman, offended--"as if I couldn't
do that!"

"Hullo!" said Darrell, as they neared the drawing-room door. "What a
crowd there is!"

For as the butler announced them, the din of talk which burst through
the door implied indeed a multitude--much at their ease.

They made their way in with difficulty, shaping their course towards
that corner in the room where they knew they should find their hostess.
Ashe was greeted on all sides with friendly words and congratulations,
and a passage was opened for him to the famous "blue sofa" where Madame
d'Estrees sat enthroned.

She looked up with animation, broke off her talk with two elderly