“How did you manage about serving?” she enquired.

“I gave both a turn,” he explained.  “I turned out for England first and then for America.”

“How splendid of you!” she murmured, raising her fine eyes admiringly and then dropping them in a most effective manner.  “But wasn’t it a shocking waste of time and lives!  Just fancy, in all those years, how many undeveloped geniuses must have been killed without ever having had their chance!  How miserably upside down the whole world was, too!  Four years and more during which a supper party, except at a private house, was an impossibility!”

“I suppose,” Wingate admitted, a little staggered, “that taken from that point of view the war was an unfortunate infliction.”

“And after all,” the young lady went on, “here we are at the end of it very much as though it had never happened.  Do you think they will be able to stop wars in the future?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed.  “I suppose international differences must be settled somehow or other.  Personally, I think a wrestling match, or something of that sort—­”

“Now you’re making fun of me,” she interrupted reproachfully.  “I see you don’t want to talk about serious things.  Do you admire Miss Orford?” she asked, indicating another musical comedy lady who was seated opposite, and who had shown occasional signs of a desire to join in the conversation.

Wingate took his cue from his questioner’s tone and glance.

“A little too thin,” he hazarded.

“Molly is almost painfully thin,” his companion conceded, with apparent reluctance, “and I think she makes up far more than she need.”

“Bad for the complexion in time, I suppose,” he observed.

“I don’t know.  Molly’s been doing it for a great many years.  She understudies me, you know, at the theatre.  Would you like me to send you word if ever I’m unable to play?”

“Quite unnecessary,” he replied, with the proper amount of warmth.  “I should be far too brokenhearted to attend if you were not there.  Besides, is Miss Orford clever?”

“Don’t ask me,” her friend sighed.  “She doesn’t even do me the compliment of imitating me.  Tell me, don’t you love supping here?”

“Under present circumstances,” he agreed.

“I love it, too,” she murmured, with an answering flash of the eyes.  “I am not sure,” she went on, “that I care about these large parties, although I always like to come when Sir Frederick asks me.  He is such a dear, isn’t he?”

“He is a capital host,” Wingate assented.

“I am so fond of really interesting conversation,” the young lady further confided.  “I love to have a man who really amounts to something tell me about his life and work.”

“Mr. Peter Phipps, for instance?” he suggested.  “Didn’t I see you lunching here with him the other day?”

She looked across the table, towards where Phipps was sitting hand in hand with a young lady in blue, and apparently being very entertaining.  Miss Flossie caught a glimpse of Wingate’s expression.