Josephine laughed.  Then she saw Phipps standing in the background and she raised her voice a little.

“Mr. Wingate called for me,” she explained.  “Taxis are so scarce in our part of the world on Sunday nights, and when one does happen to know a man who makes enough money on Friday to buy a fleet of motor-cars on Saturday—­”

“My doing,” Kendrick interrupted.  “I’m his broker.  Did you buy the Rolls-Royce, Wingate?”

“I brought it away with me, chauffeur and all.”

“The most delightful car I ever rode in,” Josephine pronounced.

Phipps manoeuvred his way to her side.  There was a frown on his forehead as he leaned towards her.

“So a Rolls-Royce is your favourite make of car, Lady Dredlinton,” he remarked.

“Absolutely!  I can’t conceive of anything more comfortable.  Mr. Wingate has promised to let me try it in the country next week.”

“So my Wolseley is to be scrapped?” Phipps asked, under his breath.

She looked at him pleasantly enough but with a dangerous light in her eyes.

“Have you a Wolseley?” she murmured.  “Oh, yes, I remember!  You offered to send it around to take me shopping.”

“I sent it around three mornings,” he replied.  “You did not use it once.  You did not even open the note I left inside.”

“I am not very fond of using other people’s cars,” she said.

“It need not be another person’s car unless you like,” he muttered.

She looked at him for a moment thoughtfully.  Phipps was a man of brass, without sensitiveness or sensibility.  Nevertheless, he flushed a little.  Just then dinner was announced and Lady Amesbury bustled once more into the midst of her guests.

“My dears,” she told them all, “I’ve forgotten who takes anybody down!  Scrap along as you are, and you’ll find the cards in your places downstairs.  Pick up any one you like.  Not you, sir,” she added, turning to Wingate.  “You’re going to take me.  I want to hear all the latest New York gossip.  And—­lean down, please—­are you really trying to flirt with Josephine Dredlinton?  Don’t disturb her unless you’re in earnest.  She’s got a horrible husband.”

“I admire Lady Dredlinton more than any woman I know,” Wingate answered.  “One does not flirt with the woman one really cares for.”

“Hoity-toity!” Lady Amesbury exclaimed.  “That’s the real divorce-court tone.  There was a young man—–­I don’t know how many years ago—­who used to talk like that to me at the time Amesbury was Ambassador at Madrid and took up with that Lola de Mendoza woman.  Neither affair came to anything, though.  Amesbury got tired of Spain, and my young man married a rich grocer’s daughter.  Still, I recognise the tone.  Here we all are.  Now you play a sort of hunt-the-slipper game, looking for your places, all of you.  I know mine, thank God!  Now let’s pray to Heaven the soup’s hot!  And don’t any one talk to me while I’m eating it.  The present generation are shocking soup eaters.”