“Is it you, Mr. Machin?” murmured the still lovely creature warmly.

They shook hands.  Never had social pleasure so thrilled him.  The conversation was short.  He did not presume on the past.  He knew that here he was not on his own ashpit, as they say in the Five Towns.  The Countess and her escort went forward.  Edward Henry sat down again.

He gave the red and the blue hats one calm glance, which they failed to withstand.  The affair of the artichoke was for ever wiped out.

After lunch he went forth again in his electric brougham.  The weather had cleared.  The opulent streets were full of pride and sunshine.  And as he penetrated into one shop after another, receiving kowtows, obeisances, curtsies, homage, surrender, resignation, submission, he gradually comprehended that it takes all sorts to make a world, and that those who are called to greatness must accept with dignity the ceremonials inseparable from greatness.  And the world had never seemed to him so fine, nor any adventure so diverting and uplifting as this adventure.

When he returned to his suite his private corridor was piled up with a numerous and excessively attractive assortment of parcels.  Joseph took his overcoat and hat and a new umbrella and placed an easy-chair conveniently for him in the drawing-room.

“Get my bill,” he said shortly to Joseph as he sank into the gilded fauteuil.

“Yes, sir.”

One advantage of a valet, he discovered, is that you can order him to do things which to do yourself would more than exhaust your moral courage.

The black-calved gentleman-in-waiting brought the bill.  It lay on a salver and was folded, conceivably so as to break the shock of it to the recipient.

Edward Henry took it.

“Wait a minute,” he said.

He read on the bill:  “Apartments, L8.  Dinner, L1, 2s. 0d.  Breakfast, 6s. 6d.  Lunch, 18s.  Half Chablis, 6s. 6d.  Valet’s board, 10s.  Tooth-brush, 2s. 6d.”

“That’s a bit thick, half-a-crown for that tooth-brush!” he said to himself.  “However—­”

The next instant he blenched once more.

“Gosh!” he privately exclaimed as he read:  “Paid driver of taxi-cab, L2, 3s. 6d.”

He had forgotten the taxi.  But he admired the sang-froid of Wilkins’s, which paid such trifles as a matter of course, without deigning to disturb a guest by an inquiry.  Wilkins’s rose again in his esteem.

The total of the bill exceeded thirteen pounds.

“All right,” he said to the gentleman-in-waiting.

“Are you leaving to-day, sir?” the being permitted himself to ask.

“Of course I’m not leaving to-day!  Haven’t I hired an electric brougham for a week?” Edward Henry burst out.  “But I suppose I’m entitled to know how much I’m spending!”

The gentleman-in-waiting humbly bowed and departed.

Alone in the splendid chamber Edward Henry drew out a swollen pocket-book and examined its crisp, crinkly contents, which made a beauteous and a reassuring sight.