They made their way across to the Gaiety, where Selingman was a very conspicuous figure in the largest and most conspicuous box.  He watched with complacency the delivery of enormous bouquets to the principal artistes, and received their little bow of thanks with spontaneous and unaffected graciousness.  Afterwards he dragged Norgate round to the stage-door, installed him in a taxi, and handed over to his escort two or three of his guests.

“I entrust you, Mr. Norgate,” he declared, “with our one German export more wonderful, even, than my crockery—­Miss Rosa Morgen.  Take good care of her and bring her to the Milan.  The other young ladies are my honoured guests, but they are also Miss Morgen’s.  She will tell you their names.  I have others to look after.”

Norgate’s last glimpse of Selingman was on the pavement outside the theatre, surrounded by a little group of light-hearted girls and a few young men.

“He is perfectly wonderful, our Mr. Selingman,” Miss Morgen murmured, as they started off.  “Tell me how long you have known him, Mr. Norgate?”

“Four days,” Norgate replied.

She screamed with laughter.

“It is so like him,” she declared.  “He makes friends everywhere.  A day is sufficient.  He gives such wonderful parties.  I do not know why we all like to come, but we do.  I suppose that we all get half-a-dozen invitations to supper most nights, but there is not one of us who does not put off everything to sup with Mr. Selingman.  He sits in the middle—­oh, you shall watch him to-night!—­and what he says I do not know, but we laugh, and then we laugh again, and every one is happy.”

“I think he is the most irresistible person,” Norgate agreed.  “I met him two or three nights ago, coming over from Berlin, and he spoke of nothing but crockery and politics.  To-night I dine with him, and I find a different person.”

“He is a perfect dear,” one of the other girls exclaimed, “but so curiously inquisitive!  I have a great friend, a gunner, whom I brought with me to one of his parties, and he is always asking me questions about him and his work.  I had to absolutely worry Dick so as to be able to answer all his questions, didn’t I, Rosa?”

Miss Morgen nodded a little guardedly.

“I should not call him really inquisitive,” she said.  “It is because he likes to seem interested in the subject which interests you.”

“I am not at all sure whether that is true,” the other young lady objected.  “You remember when Ellison Gray was always around with us?  Why, I know that Mr. Selingman simply worried Maud’s life out of her to get a little model of his aeroplane from him.  There were no end of things he wanted to know about cubic feet and dimensions.  He is a dear, all the same.”

“A perfect dear!” the others echoed.

They drew up outside the Milan.  Rosa Morgen turned to their escort.

“We will meet you in the hall in five minutes,” she said.  “Then we can all go together and find Mr. Selingman.”