“Any chance of your taking me back to the Milan?” Wingate enquired.

Sarah shook her head regretfully, glancing down at her muslin gown.

“Can’t you see I’m in my party clothes?” she said.  “I did bring the old ’bus down here, but I had a boy meet me and take it away.  I’ll send you my card and telephone number, Mr. Wingate.  You can rely upon my punctuality and dispatch.  Even my aunt here would give me a reference, if pressed,” she added, as their hostess paused for a moment to whisper something in Josephine’s ear.

“Your driving’s like your life, dear, much too fast for my liking.”  Lady Amesbury declared.  “I hope things are better in your country, Mr. Wingate, but our young people go on anyhow now.  Here’s my niece drives a taxicab and is proud of it, my own daughter designs underclothes and sells them at a shop in Sloane Street to any one who comes along, and my boy, who ought to go into the Guards, prefers to go into Roger Kendrick’s office.  What are you going to start him at, Roger?”

“A pound a week and his lunch money, probably,” Kendrick replied.

“I don’t think he’ll earn it,” his fond mother said sadly.  “However, that’s your business.  Don’t forget you’re dining with me Sunday night, John.  I’ll ask Josephine, too, if you succeed in making friends with her.  She’s a little difficult, but well worth knowing.—­Dear me, I wish people would begin to go!  I wonder whether they realise that it is nearly six o’clock.”

“I shan’t stir a yard,” Sarah declared, “until I have had another ice.  Jimmy, run and fetch me one.”

“My family would be the last to help me out,” Lady Amesbury grumbled.  “I’m ashamed of the whole crowd of you round here.  Roger, you and Mr. White are disgraceful, sitting and drinking whiskies and sodas and enjoying yourselves, when you ought to have been walking round the gardens being properly bored.”

“I came to enjoy myself and I have done so,” Kendrick assured her.  “To add to my satisfaction, I have met my biggest client—­at least he is my biggest client when he feels like doing things.”

“Do you feel like doing things now, Mr. Wingate?” Sarah ventured.

Maurice White held out his hands in horror.

“My dear young lady,” he exclaimed, “such questions are absolutely impossible!  When a man comes on to a market, he comes on secretly.  There are plenty of people who would give you a handsome cheque to hear Mr. Wingate’s answer to that question.”

“Any one may hand over the cheque, then,” Wingate interposed smilingly, “because my answer to Miss Baldwin is prompt and truthful.  I do not know.”

“Of course,” Lady Amesbury complained, “if you are going to introduce a commercial element into my party—­well, why don’t you and Maurice, Roger, go and dance about opposite one another, and tear up bits of paper, and pretend to be selling one another things?—­Hooray, I can see some people beginning to move!  I’ll go and speed them off the premises.”