He made haste, indeed, to prove his need of her or some other Egeria; for she was no sooner departed with the other ladies than he came to mischief.  Left alone with the gentlemen, his temperament asserted itself.  He had no mind in any company to be merely a listener.  Moreover, that slight, as he regarded it, of sending him down without a lady, still rankled; and last, but not least, he had drunk a good deal of champagne, to which he was quite unaccustomed.  So that when Lord Findon fell into a discussion with the Ambassador of Irving’s Hamlet and Othello, then among the leading topics of London—­when the foreigner politely but emphatically disparaged the English actor and Lord Findon with zeal defended him—­who should break into the august debate but this strong-browed, black-eyed fellow, from no one knew where, whose lack of some of the smaller conventions had already been noticed by a few of the company.

At first all looked well.  A London dinner-party loves novelty, and is always ready to test the stranger within its gates.  Fenwick slipped into the battle as a supporter of Lord Findon’s argument, and his host with smiling urbanity welcomed him to the field.  But in a few minutes the newcomer had ravaged the whole of it.  The older men were silenced, and Fenwick was leaning across the table, gesticulating with one hand, and lifting his port-wine with the other, addressing now Lord Findon and now the Ambassador—­who stared at him in amazement—­with an assurance that the world only allows to its oldest favourites.  Lord Findon in vain tried to stop him.

‘Didn’t know this was to be a dinner with speeches,’ murmured the financier, after a few minutes, in his neighbour’s ear.  ’Think I’ll get up and propose a vote of thanks to the chairman.’

‘There ought, at least, to be a time-limit,’ said the neighbour, with a shrug.  ‘Where on earth did Findon pick him up?’

‘I say, what an awfully rum chap!’ said the young son of the house—­wondering—­to Arthur Welby.  ‘What does he talk like that for?’

‘He doesn’t talk badly,’ said Welby, whose mouth showed the laughter within.

Meanwhile Fenwick—­loud-voiced, excited—­had brought his raid to a climax by an actual attack upon the stately Frenchman opposite, whose slight sarcastic look pricked him intolerably.  All other conversation at the table fell dumb.

Lord Findon coloured, and rose.

‘You are a great deal more sure of my own opinion than I am myself,’ he said, coldly.  ’I am much obliged to you, but—­shall we adjourn this conversation?’

As the men walked upstairs, Fenwick realised that he had blundered; he felt himself isolated and in disfavour.  Arthur Welby had approached him, but Lord Findon had rather pointedly drawn an arm through Welby’s and swept him away.  No one else spoke to him, and even the private secretary, who had before befriended him, left him severely alone.  None of the ladies in the drawing-room upstairs showed,