ocktails, however, beguiled the suspense.

"Is this for me?" she asked, picking up a full glass when she came back.

"No, my dear," said Mr. Bishop. "It isn't. We will go in to lunch." And
they went in to lunch, leaving unconsumed the cocktail which the
abstemious and spartan Sissie had declined to drink.

II

"I suppose you've been to see the Twelve and Thirteen," said Eve, in her
new grand, gracious manner to Miss Fancy, when the party was seated at a
round, richly-flowered table specially reserved by Mr. Softly Bishop on
the Embankment front of the restaurant, and the hors d'oeuvre had begun
to circulate on the white cloth, which was as crowded as the gold room.

"I'm afraid I haven't," muttered Miss Fancy weakly but with due
refinement. The expression of fear was the right expression. Eve had put
the generally brazen woman in a fright at the first effort. And the
worst was that Miss Fancy did not even know what the Twelve and Thirteen
was--or were. At the opening of her debut at what she imagined to be the
great, yet exclusive, fashionable world, Miss Fancy was failing. Of what
use to be perfectly dressed and jewelled, to speak with a sometimes
carefully-corrected accent, to sit at the best table in the London
restaurant most famous in the United States, to be affianced to the
cleverest fellow she had ever struck, if the wonderful and famous
hostess, Mrs. Prohack, whose desirable presence was due only to Softly's
powerful influence in high circles, could floor her at the very outset
of the conversation? It is a fact that Miss Fancy would have given the
emerald ring off her left first-finger to be able to answer back. All
Miss Fancy could do was to smite Mr. Softly Bishop with a homicidal
glance for that he had not in advance put her wise about something
called the Twelve and Thirteen. It is also a fact that Miss Fancy would
have perished sooner than say to Mrs. Prohack the simple words: "I
haven't the slightest idea what the Twelve and Thirteen are." Eve did
not disguise her impression that Miss Fancy's lapse was very strange and
disturbing.

"I suppose you've seen the new version of the 'Sacre du Prin-temps,'
Miss Fancy," said Mrs. Oswald Morfey, that exceedingly modern and
self-possessed young married lady.

"Not yet," said Miss Fancy, and foolishly added: "We were thinking of
going to-night."

"There won't be any more performances this season," said Ozzie, that
prince of authorities on the univer