Wingate nodded and was promptly led away.  They found places about half-way down the great horseshoe table, laden with flowers and every sort of cold delicacy.  There were champagne bottles at every other place, a small crowd of waiters, eager to justify their existence,—­a rollicking, Bohemian crowd, the jeunesse doree of London, and all the talent and beauty of the musical comedy stage.  It was a side of life with which Wingate was somewhat unfamiliar.  Nevertheless, his feet that night were resting upon the clouds.  Any form of life was sweet to him.  The new joy in his heart warmed his pulses, lightened his tongue, unlocked a new geniality.  He was disposed to talk with everybody.  The young lady by his side, however, had other views.

“Do you like our show, Mr. Wingate?” she asked.  “Or perhaps you don’t go to musical comedies?  I am in ‘Lady Diana,’ you know.”

“One of the very first things I am going to see,” Wingate replied, “but as a matter of fact, I only arrived from America a few days ago.  I hear that you are a great success.”

It took the young lady very nearly a quarter of an hour to explain how greatly the play might be improved and strengthened by the allotment to her of a few more songs and another dance, and she also recounted the argument she had had with the stage manager as to her absence from the stage during the greater part of Act Two.

“I am not vain,” she concluded, with engaging frankness, “but on the other hand I am not foolish, and I know quite well that many people—­a great part of the audience, in fact—­come because they see my name upon the boards, and I have numberless complaints because I am only on for such a short time in what should be the most important act of the play.  I tell them it’s nothing to do with me, but as long as my name is displayed outside the theatre and I know how they feel about it, I feel a certain responsibility.  Now you are a very clever man, and a man of the world, Mr. Wingate.  What do you think about it?”

“I think that you are quite right,” he declared, with satisfactory emphasis.

“You don’t know Mr. Maken, our manager, I suppose?” she enquired.

Wingate shook his head.

“As a matter of fact,” he confessed, “I know very few theatrical people.”

“What a pity you’re not fond of the stage!” she sighed, with a world of regret in her very blue eyes.  “You might have a theatre of your own, and a leading lady, and all the rest of it.”

“It sounds rather fascinating,” he admitted, “under certain circumstances.  All the same, I don’t think I should like to make a business of what is such a great pleasure.”

“I thought, with American men,” she said archly, “that their business was their pleasure.”

“To a certain extent, I suppose,” he admitted, “but then, you see, I am half English.  My mother was English although she was married in America, and I was born there.”