ad, poised an instant on one
side, seemed to say.

'Who is it? Who is late?' demanded Mrs. Graham Townley, whose entrance
into the conversation produced the effect of the sudden opening of
window and door on a windy day. People shrink a little in the draught,
and all light, frivolous things are blown out of the way. English people
stand this sort of thing very much as they stand the actual draughts in
their cold houses. They feel it to be good for them on the whole. Mrs.
Graham Townley was acknowledged to be a person of much character. Though
her interest in public affairs was bounded only by the limits of the
Empire, she had found time to reform the administration of a great
London hospital. Also she was related to a great many people. In the
ultra smart set she of course had no _raison d'etre_, but in the older
society it was held meet that these things be. So that when she put her
question, not only was she not ignored, but each one felt it a serious
thing for anybody to be so late that Mrs. Graham Townley instead of
button-holing some one with, 'What, now, should you say is the extent of
the Pan-Islamic influence in Egypt?' should be reduced to asking, 'Who
are we waiting for?'

'It's certain to be a man,' said Lady John Ulland, as calmly convinced
as one who states a natural law.

'Why?' asked her niece, the charming girl in rose colour.

'No woman would dare to come in so late as this. She'd have turned back
and telephoned that the horses had run away with her or something of the
sort.'

'Dick Farnborough won't turn back.'

'Oh, Mr. Farnborough's the culprit!' said a smartly dressed woman, with
a nervous, rather angry air, though the ropes of fine pearls she wore
might, some would think, have soothed the most savage breast.

'Yes, Dick and Captain Beeching!' said Mrs. Freddy; 'and I shall give
them just two minutes more!'

'Aunt Ellen _said_ it couldn't be a woman,' remarked the girl in pink,
as one struck with such perspicacity.

'Well, I wouldn't ask them again to _my_ house,' said the discontented
person with the pearls.

'Yes, she would,' Lady John said aside to Borrodaile. 'She has a
daughter, and so have most of the London hostesses, and the young
villains know it.'

'Oh, yes; sometimes they never turn up at all,' said the pink niece.

'After accepting!' ejaculated Lady Whyteleafe of the pearls.

'Oh, yes; sometimes they don't even answer.'

'I never heard of such impudence.'

'I have, tw