the ceiling, which was cosily covered with large, brilliantly
tinted, life-sized parrots.

Miss Belvoir's brother, Fred, often declared that when he came home
late, which he generally did--between six and nine in the morning were
his usual hours--he always had to stop himself from getting a gun, and
he was afraid that some day he might lose his self-control and be
tempted to shoot the parrots. He was an excellent shot.

The room was full of low bookcases crammed with books, and large fat
cushions on the floor. They looked extremely comfortable, but as a
matter of fact nobody ever liked sitting on them. When English people
once overcame their natural shyness so far as to sit down on them, they
were afraid they would never be able to get up again.

Three or four people were dotted about the room, but no one had ventured
on the cushions. There was one young lady whose hair was done in the
early Victorian style, parted in the middle, with bunches of curls each
side. As far as her throat she appeared to be strictly a Victorian--very
English, about 1850--but from that point she suddenly became Oriental,
and for the rest was dressed principally in what looked like beaded
curtains.

Leaning on the mantelpiece and smoking a cigarette with great ease of
manner was a striking and agreeable-looking young man, about eight and
twenty, whom Miss Belvoir introduced as Mr. Bevan Fairfield. He was fair
and good-looking, very dandified in dress, and with a rather humorously
turned-up nose and an excessively fluent way of speaking.

"I was just scolding Miss Belvoir," he said, "when you came in. She's
been playing me the trick she's always playing. She gets me here under
the pretext that some celebrity's coming and then they don't turn up.
Signor Semolini, the Futurist, I was asked to meet. And then she gets a
telegram--or says she does--that he can't come. Very odd, very curious,
they never can come--at any rate when I'm here. Some people would rather
say, 'Fancy, I was asked to Miss Belvoir's the other day to meet
Semolini, only he didn't turn up,' than not say anything at all. Some
people think it's a distinction not to have met Semolini at Miss
Belvoir's."

"It's quite a satisfactory distinction," remarked Bertha. "Semolini has
been to see us once, but he really isn't very interesting."

"Ah, but still you're able to say that. I sha'n't be able to say, 'I met
Semolini the other day, and, do you know, he's such a disappointment.'