ek do?"

"Admirably!" Mary answered.

"Do you know whom you take in, Mr. Brooks?" Selina interrupted.

Brooks glanced at the card in his hand.

"Mrs. Seventon," he said. "Yes, thanks."

Selina looked up at him with an arch smile.

"Mrs. Seventon is most dreadfully proper," she said. "You will have to
be on your best behaviour. Oh, here comes some one. What a bother!"

There was an influx of guests. Mrs. Bullsom, reduced to a state of
chaotic nervousness, was pushed as far into the background as possible
by her daughters, and Mr. Bullsom, banished from the hearth where he
felt surest of himself, plunged into a conversation with Mr. Seventon
on the weather. Brooks leaned over towards Mary.

"Wednesday week at eight o'clock, then," he said. "I want to have a
chat with you about the subject."

"Not now," she interposed. "You know these people, don't you, and the
Huntingdons? Go and talk to them, please."

Brooks laughed, and went to the rescue. He won Mrs. Bullsom's eternal
gratitude by diverting Mrs. Seventon's attention from her, and thereby
allowing her a moment or two to recover herself. Somehow or other a
buzz of conversation was kept up until the solemn announcement of
dinner. And when she was finally seated in her place, and saw a couple
of nimble waiters, with the greengrocer in the back, looking cool and
capable, she felt that the worst was over.

The solemn process of sampling doubtful-looking entries and eating
saddle of mutton to the tune of a forced conversation was got through
without disaster. Mrs. Bullsom felt her fat face break out into
smiles. Mr. Bullsom, though he would like to have seen everybody go
twice for everything, began to expand. He had already recited the story
of Kingston Brooks' greatness to both of his immediate neighbours, and
in a casual way mentioned his early patronage of that remarkable young
man. And once meeting his eye he raised his glass.

"Not quite up to the Enton vintage, Brooks, eh? but all right, I hope."

Brooks nodded back, and resumed his conversation. Selina took the
opportunity to mention casually to her neighbour, Mr. Huntingdon, that
Mr. Brooks was a great friend of Lord Arranmore's, and Louise, on her
side of the table, took care also to disseminate the same information.
Everybody was properly impressed. Mr. Bullsom decided to give a
dinner-party every month, and to double the greengrocer's tip, and by
the time Selina's third stage whisper had reached her