"I was thinking really of knowing people." Singer looked around the room with manifest satisfaction. "One wouldn't mind." It was a pleasant sight even for one who was not fresh from the regions of the barbarians. Half the tables were still filled, and the restaurant, with its low ceiling and its dark, mahogany-paneled walls, looked like a warm, glowing cave. At a table near by a party of eight were dining. Facing Austin sat a girl with a quiet face, but an infinite fund of laughter in her eyes. Not much description is needed; everyone has seen Lady Angela's portrait in the illustrated papers. Charles Edward withdrew his gaze from her. "Mind!" he exclaimed. "Rather not. No, I don't know anybody here. I have a cousin who has bagged an English husband. If she were here she would fix me. But the silly woman has chosen just this time to go to America on a visit. She is sending some letters for me, I believe, but they haven't come. And she won't be back herself for three weeks or so. But even if one got acquainted, one couldn't be sure of getting acquainted with just the people one wants to know." His eye rested again upon the girl at the table near by. "How ridiculous all this business of introductions is anyhow, Singer. Here you and I are for only a little time. We should love to give dinners here every night and ask quantities of these charming people. We can't, because we don't know them. And so we've got to spend all the time we have for London in making friends and getting ready to enjoy it." "It's a dazzling prospect, but if I gave dinners every night they would soon degenerate into buns and milk at the-what do they call 'em, the A B C shops. You can talk about the Savoy." "That's nothing." Austin was honestly modest about his money. "I don't exactly know what the current quotations on Central Asian books are, but I'll bet that in two weeks you will sell yours for hundreds of guineas, crowns, florins, and ha'pence of their ridiculous money. But until then I'll be the host at our dinners." "I might venture to do that myself, I suppose, as long as we don't know anyone to ask. "Yes, I suppose you must know them," meditated Charles Edward. Then suddenly, "I have an idea, Singer." "Don't boast," his companion counselled. "Will you dine here with me a week from to-night?" "Gladly," laughed Singer; "that's simple." "And wouldn't you rather be surrounded by distinguished Londoners and beautiful English women than to feed alone with me?" "Yes, I should." "Then you shall. I have an idea." This with a gesture. "Don't knock over that bottle. I'll come to dinner, but you won't get anyone else. I don't believe that even good dinners like this are so rare in London that people will come to dine with a total stranger in order to get one." "Finishing coffee on the terrace of the Savoy" "Oh, but they shall think they know me." "If you are going to do it under an assumed name, why not issue a royal command for a state dinner at Buckingham Palace?" "I shall use my own name of Charles Edward Austin." "But how?" "That's my idea." And Austin sent for the head waiter. "You can give me a private room for a dinner of ten or twelve this night of next week, can't you?" he enquired of that gentleman. "I'll come in later and order dinner. Austin is the name. Wednesday, yes. Oh, by the bye," as the maitre d'hotel turned to go, "can you tell me, is that lady in white at the next table Lady Susan Simpkins? I think I know her, but I'm not sure.' "No, sir, that is Lady Angela Farnston." "Oh," said Charles Edward, putting a note of disappointment into his voice. "She is, let me see "She is Lord Emscott's daughter." "Of course. Thanks, so much," and then to Singer, as Monsieur Rodolphe moved away, "I know one person I shall ask. Let's go to the Gaiety." II "Is there anything interesting in your letters, mother?" asked Lady Angela the following morning at breakfast in Grosvenor Crescent. "Nothing much. Invitations. One from a Mr. Austin whom I seem to have met last winter at Monte Carlo." "Who was he, Caroline?" asked her husband. "That's what I don't seem to remember, Frederick. Helena Frampton always had a great many young men about. I forget their names. "You would, dear Caroline, wouldn't you?" His wife's uncertain memory was one of the few trials of his life. "I remember hearing of him," said Angela, "from Mrs. Frampton. Mother was considered to have flirted disgracefully with him.” "Angela, you are outrageous," Lady Emscott gasped. "Yes, I know I am. What night does he want us to dine?" Lady Emscott read the note. that is, as well as I remember any of Helena's young men." "That 'fellow-countryman' means that he is an American," observed Lady Angela. "We certainly shan't dine with him when your mother doesn't remember him.” THE valet at the Berkeley Hotel took away"I remember him well enough, Frederick; from Mr. Austin's room on Thursday evening a huge pile of weekly and daily papers. There were numbers of the "Gossiping Times" for the past three months, with portraits and anecdotes, one might have thought, of half the people of England. The smoking room waiter observed a guest that afternoon deep for hours in the "Blue Book," "Who's Who," and "Burke's Peerage." A clerk in a Piccadilly book shop sold an irreproachable looking young American a copy of "The Polite Letter Writer." And that evening Charles Edward consigned a number of letters to the post. A glimpse at a few of them may not be uninteresting. The first was addressed to the Countess of Emscott. DEAR LADY EMSCOTT, I hope you will remember me, and that you and Lord Emscott will pardon rather short notice, and if you are free, dine next Wednesday, the Savoy, 8.30. I can't even call on you before then as in the interval I may have to go North. A fellow-countryman of mine, Edward Singer, is coming, and as all London is clamoring to know him soon, on account of his exploits in Eastern Turkestan, I am seizing the earliest opportunity to profit by my friendship with a new celebrity. Do you remember promising me at Monte Carlo last February that I should meet your daughter in London? Will you bring Lady Angela to dine? It will just make my number even. Yours most sincerely, CHARLES EDWARD AUSTIN. "Wednesday is a free evening," was Lady Angela's comment. She cared very little for unoccupied hours during the London season. "It doesn't need to be," said her mother. "Your Aunt Emily wants us to come there that night. And afterwards-where is her note? Oh, afterwards there will be some more people in and a little talk on the housing problem by an expert from the County Council." Lord Emscott looked up apprehensively from the "Times." "Has your sister changed her cook, Caroline?" "No, I don't think so.' "We know the Savoy hasn't, Father." "That quite apart, perhaps Eastern Turkestan interests me fully as much as the housing problem. I think we had better accept, Caroline." The "Gossiping Times" said that Mrs. Fred Wilding was a lion hunter. Charles Edward's note to her was a simple task. DEAR MRS. WILDING, Will you dine with one American to meet another, Wednesday next, the Savoy, 8.30? Edward Singer is my lion. He is just back from Central Asia and is going to make us forget Landor and Sven Hedin in no time. I am also asking Lord and Lady Emscott and the Will- teen minutes in advance of the time apiam Northbridges. Yours most sincerely CHARLES EDWARD AUSTIN. Mrs. Wilding remarked to a friend the next afternoon that really it was getting to a point in London where you rarely knew your host or hostess, or they you. But she asked in the next sentence whether Lady Wynche knew Edward Singer, the great explorer. Singer, it appeared, would be coming to Mrs. Wilding's one day shortly. The William Northbridges declined Mr. Austin's kind invitation with great promptness, but Buxton, who is a F. R. G. S., and who thought that he himself knew something of Central Asian matters, accepted with alacrity. Mrs. Buxton would also come. Mr. and Mrs. Revell have lived in London for years, although they are Americans. Charles Edward did not know them, so the rules of his game allowed him to ask them. Yet his conscience troubled him a little when he thought that because they knew the same set of people in New York that he did, the difficulties of conversation with them would pointed in the notes of invitation. It is as well to cage your lion before you admit visitors to your menagerie. Besides which, the host of the evening hoped that interest in Eastern Turkestan would at once overpower all other feelings in his guests, especially the vice of curiosity. "Well, Austin, I suppose you think you're going to bring it off. Do you really expect a dinner party of strangers?" Could one trust to Singer's tact and resource? In spite of the honors at graduation, Charles Edward's knowledge of history was not great; still, he thought he could remember that Napoleon had kept the secret of his plans to himself. "No," he answered; "I gave it up, old chap; it was too risky. These are people I do know. I found out that I had met Lady Emscott and had forgotten it. Funny, isn't it?" The Buxtons were announced. "It is good of you to come, Mrs. Buxton, since I knew your husband so slightly. But Mr. Singer insisted on my venturing to ask Mr. Buxton. How are you, Buxton? Have you been speaking again before the Geographical Society since the time I met you? That must "I forget who brought you." "Oh, what's his name I have a confoundedly bad memory-you know, the chap who thinks he knows something about the region himself." "You mean Hertwich," said Buxton with a snort. "Yes, Hertwich." "Is he coming to-night?" "Well, no," Charles Edward beamed. "You see, Singer didn't seem even to have heard of him, and I thought if I could get you-" He introduced Singer, and Mrs. Wilding was announced. "I am in great luck to get you, Mrs. Wilding," was the greeting she received. "Yes, you are," she admitted. "I had to manage it, I can tell you. I was engaged to some cousins of mine for to-night. But if Mr. Singer is to burst upon London "Sold an irreproachable looking young American a copy of The Polite Letter Writer'" "You would like to arrange that the sunrise should take place in Chester Street." "Exactly, Mr. Austin. Do you know, I had a hard time trying to remember where I met you? It is good for the soul, they say, so I out with the truth." "I can quite understand. You meet so many people, and I never was especially worth remembering." "I thought at first it must have been at your Embassy." "No, I never dined there," replied Charles Edward. "Ah, then it was Mrs. Sackville's. I thought so." "And you forgot!" The speaker endeavored to put a mildly sentimental note into his voice. "Don't reproach me. You forgave me in the beginning. Now fetch me Mr. Singer." An introduction followed. Fortunately Mrs. Wilding already knew the Buxtons. She had collected the explorer once some years ago, and he had occupied for an afternoon the place in the Chester Street drawing-room to which she now destined Singer. Next came the Revells, and their host, to his shame be it said, almost welcomed the feeling of security which they gave him. The arrival of the Emscott party interrupted Mrs. Revell's flow of anecdote concerning Charles Edward's childhood. Charles Edward, inwardly agitated, though outwardly calm enough, greeted these guests, and prayed that dinner would be announced at once. "I am seating people a little unconventionally," he explained to Lady Emscott, who smiled vaguely in reply. "You ought to be at my right of course. But I know you will want to be next to Mr. Singer, and so, if I am to keep husbands and wives and fathers and daughters apart, I can't have you next me. It isn't rudeness." Charles Edward had worked the problem out by making many charts of the dinner table on the Berkeley's best notepaper. If it is worth any one's while to follow his example, it can easily be proved whether or not Mrs. Buxton had to sit at his right; and at his left, Lady Angela, flanked by Buxton. The host noted with satisfaction that the Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society seemed a fairly dull dog. Besides, he would want to talk to Singer, who sat at his left, just beyond Mrs. Revell. Before they went in to dinner Lady Emscott got a moment with her husband. "Frederick," she said, "I never saw that "Certainly I didn't." young man." "Which, my dear?" "Our host." "You knew him at Monte Carlo," explained Lord Emscott with patient weariness. "My dear Caroline, we know your memory." "I'm perfectly positive." "Then I'm sure he's all right. It's absurd to suppose that a perfect stranger would ask us to dine." |