t there was a
beautiful study for Tanqueray up-stairs, and a little dining-room and a
kitchen for Rose below.

Rose had sought counsel in her furnishing; with the result that
Tanqueray's study bore a remarkable resemblance to Laura Gunning's room
in Camden Town, while Rose's dining-room recalled vividly Mrs.
Henderson's dining-room at Fleet.

Though it was such a little house, there had been no difficulty about
getting the furniture all in. The awful thing was moving Tanqueray and
his books. It was a struggle, a hostile invasion, and it happened on his
birthday. And in the middle of it all, when the last packing-case was
hardly emptied, and there wasn't a carpet laid down anywhere, Tanqueray
announced that he had asked some people to dine that night.

"Wot, a dinner-party?" said Rose (she was trying not to cry).

"No, not a party. Only six."

"Six," said Rose, "_is_ a dinner-party."

"Twenty-six might be."

Rose sat down and looked at him and said, "Oh dear, oh dear." But she
had begun to smooth her hair in a kind of anticipation.

Then Tanqueray stooped and put his arm around her and kissed her and
said it was his birthday. He always did ask people to dine on his
birthday. There would only be the Brodricks and Nicky and Nina Lempriere
and Laura Gunning--No, Laura Gunning couldn't come. That, with
themselves, made six.

"Well----" said Rose placidly.

"I can take them to a restaurant if you'd rather. But I thought it would
be so nice to have them in our own house. When it's my birthday."

She smiled. She was taking it all in. In her eyes, for once, he was like
a child, with his birthday and his party. How could she refuse him
anything on his birthday? And all through the removal he had been so
good.

Already she was measuring spaces with her eye.

"It'll 'old six," she said--"squeezin'."

She sat silent, contemplating in a vision the right sequence of the
dinner.

"There must be soup," she said, "an' fish, an' a hongtry an' a joint,
an' a puddin' an' a sav'ry, an' dessert to follow."

"Oh Lord, no. Give 'em bread and cheese. They're none of 'em greedy."

"I'll give you something better than that," said Rose; "on your
birthday--the idea!"

Dinner was to be at eight o'clock. The lateness of the hour enabled Mr.
and Mrs. Eldred to come up and give a hand with the waiting and the
dishing-up. They had softened towards Tanqueray since he had taken that
little house. That he should give a dinner-party i