e people that he knew lunched at half-past one, excluding
a Cabinet Minister, who lunched punctually at a quarter past two, and
three Treasury clerks and one novelist who lunched at one; accordingly,
at half-past one, he presented himself in Berkeley Square, to be
informed by a sedately combative butler that luncheon was at two o'clock
but that Barbara was believed to be in her room.

Eric followed his guide up four short flights of marble stairs and was
shewn into the untidiest room that he had ever seen, filled in equal
measure with the priceless and the worthless. The bindings of Riviere
rubbed shoulders with tattered paper-backs; a cabinet of Japanese
porcelain was outraged by foolish, intrusive china cats; there was a
shelf of Waterford glass with a dynasty of blown-glass pigs, descending
from the ten-inch-high parent to the thumb-nail baby of the
litter--gravely and ridiculously arranged in a serpentine procession.
Fifty kinds of trophy adorned the mantel-piece, ranging from a West
African idol at one end to a pathetic, brown-eyed Teddy Bear at the
other, with stiff, conventional photographs and occasional miniatures
for punctuation. He recognized his own silver flask--and passed on, with
a smile. Three small tables were almost buried beneath their load of
pink carnations; a box of cigarettes, half-open and half-empty, lay
tucked between the cushions in each of three arm-chairs, and the white
bearskin rug was littered with _The Times_, a round milliner's box, two
cheque-books and a volume of Ronsard.

The butler looked dispassionately at the confusion and withdrew, giving
it up as a hopeless task. A moment later he returned to inform Eric that
her ladyship would be with him immediately. Ten minutes later Barbara
came in by another door to find him cautiously picking his way through
the disorder and examining her books and pictures.

"I didn't expect you so early," she began. "Will you give me a little
kiss, or am I still a nuisance?"

"You didn't say any time, so I chanced half-past one," Eric answered.
"If you'd told me to come at two, you'd still have been ten minutes
late, wouldn't you?" he added with a laugh. "Lady Barbara, your
conception of tidiness----"

She opened her eyes wide at him in unfeigned surprise.

"My dear, but you should see my bedroom!" she suggested.

"The purple bedroom?"

"Did you remember that? I believe you're beginning to like me, Eric.
Come and sit down instead of fidgeting."