12.30.—­Well, I have had dinner, and I found out a good many of their names—­they mostly arrived yesterday.  The woman with the green eyes is Mrs. de Yorburgh-Smith.  I am sure she is a pig.  The quite decent man, “Harry,” is a Marquis—­the Marquis of Valmond—­because he took Lady Cecilia in to dinner.  He is playing in the Nazeby Eleven.

There is a woman I like, with stick-out teeth; her name is Mrs. Vavaseur.  She knows you, and she is awfully nice, though so plain, and she never looks either over your head, or all up and down, or talks to you when she is thinking of something else.  There are heaps more women, and the eleven men, so we are a party of about twenty-five; but you will see their names in the paper.

Such a bore took me in!  He began about the dust again, but I could not stand that, so I said that every one had already asked me about it.  So he said “Oh!” and went on with his soup.

[Sidenote:  The Cricket Talk]

At the other side was another of the Eleven, and he said, Did I like cricket?  And I said, No, I hated always having to field (which was what I did, you know, when I played with the Byrne boys at Biarritz); and I asked him if he was a good player, and he said “No,” so I said I supposed he always had to field too, then; and he said, No, that sometimes they allowed him a bat, and so I said I was sure that wasn’t the same game I played; and he laughed as if I had said something funny—­his name is Lord George Lane—­and the other one laughed too, and they both looked idiots, and so I did not say any more about that.  But we talked on all the time, and every one else seemed to be having such fun, and they all call each other by pet names, and shorten up all their adjectives (it is adjectives I mean, not adverbs).  I am sure you made a mistake in what you told me, that all well-bred people behave nicely at dinner, and sit up, because they don’t a bit; lots of them put their elbows on the table, and nearly all sat anyhow in their chairs.  Only Lady Cecilia and Mrs. Vavaseur behaved like you; but then they are both quite old—­over forty.

They all talk about things that no stranger could understand, but I dare say I shall pick it up presently.  And after dinner, in the drawing-room, Lady Cecilia did introduce me to two girls—­the Roose girls—­you know.  Well, Lady Jane is the best of the two; Lady Violet is a lump.  They both poke their heads, and Jane turns in her toes.  They have rather the look in their eyes of people with tight boots.  Violet said, “Do you bicycle?” and I said, “Yes, sometimes;” and she said, with a big gasp:  “Jane and I adore it.  We have been ten miles since tea with Captain Winchester and Mr. Wertz.”

[Sidenote:  An African Millionaire]