ook their places at the table which had been reserved for
them. Lady Anselman glanced around with the scrutinising air of the
professional hostess, to see that her guests were properly seated before
she devoted herself to the Cabinet Minister. She had a word or two to
say to nearly every one of them.

"I have put you next Miss Conyers, Ronnie," she remarked, "because we
give all the good things to our men when they come home from the war.
And I have put you next Olive, Ralph," she went on, turning to the
sailor, "because I hear you are expecting to get your ship to-day or
to-morrow, so you, too, have to be spoiled a little. As a general rule
I don't approve of putting engaged people together, it concentrates
conversation so. And, Lord Romsey," she added, turning to her neighbour,
"please don't imagine for a moment that I am going to break my promise.
We are going to talk about everything in the world except the war.
I know quite well that if Ronnie has had any particularly thrilling
experiences, he won't tell us about them, and I also know that your
brain is packed full of secrets which nothing in the world would induce
you to divulge. We are going to try and persuade Madame to tell us about
her new play," she concluded, smiling at the French actress, "and there
are so many of my friends on the French stage whom I must hear about."

Lord Romsey commenced his luncheon with an air of relief. He was a man
of little more than middle-age, powerfully built, inclined to be sombre,
with features of a legal type, heavily jawed. "Always tactful,
dear hostess," he murmured. "As a matter of fact, nothing but the
circumstance that it was your invitation and that Madame Selarne was to
be present, brought me here to-day. It is so hard to avoid speaking of
the great things, and for a man in my position," he added, dropping his
voice a little, "so difficult to say anything worth listening to about
them, without at any rate the semblance of indiscretion."

"We all appreciate that," Lady Anselman assured him sympathetically.
"Madame Selarne has promised to give us an outline of the new play which
she is producing in Manchester."

"If that would interest you all," Madame Selarne assented, "it
commences--so!"

For a time they nearly all listened in absorbed silence. Her
gestures, the tricks of her voice, the uplifting of her eyebrows and
shoulders--all helped to give life and colour to the little sketch she
expounded. Only those at the