“No room!” said George, feeling that he had at last got into the true arena of the struggle for life.

“Oh yes!” said Lois, with superior confidence.

She bore mercilessly across the floor.  Round the edge of the huge room, beneath the gallery, were a number of little alcoves framed in fretted Moorish arches of white-enamelled wood.  Three persons were just emerging from one of these.  She sprang within, and sank into a wicker arm-chair.

“There is always a table,” she breathed, surveying the whole scene with a smile of conquest.

George sat down opposite to her with his back to the hall; he could survey nothing but Lois, and the world of the mirror behind her.

“That’s one of father’s maxims,” she said.

“What is?”

“‘There is always a table.’  Well, you know, there always is.”

“He must be a very wise man.”

“He is.”

“What’s his special line?”

She exclaimed: 

“Don’t you know father?  Hasn’t Miss Wheeler told you?  Or Mrs. Orgreave?”

“No.”

“But you must know father.  Father’s ‘Parisian’ in The Sunday Journal.”

Despite the mention of this ancient and very dignified newspaper, George felt a sense of disappointment.  He had little esteem for journalists, whom Mr. Enwright was continually scoffing at, and whom he imagined to be all poor.  He had conceived Mr. Ingram as perhaps a rich cosmopolitan financier, or a rich idler—­but at any rate rich, whatever he might be.

“Of course he does lots of other work besides that.  He writes for the Pall Mall Gazette and the St. James’s Gazette. In fact it’s his proud boast that he writes for all the gazettes, and he’s the only man who does.  That’s because he’s so liked.  Everybody adores him.  I adore him myself.  He’s a great pal of mine.  But he’s very strict.”

“Strict?”

“Yes,” she insisted, rather defensively.  “Why not?  I should like a strawberry ice, and a lemon-squash, and a millefeuille cake.  Don’t be alarmed, please.  I’m a cave-woman.  You’ve got to get used to it.”

“What’s a cave-woman?”

“It’s something primitive.  You must come over to Paris.  If father likes you, he’ll take you to one of the weekly lunches of the Anglo-American Press Circle.  He always does that when he likes anyone.  He’s the Treasurer....  Haven’t you got any millefeuille cakes?” she demanded of the waitress, who had come to renew the table and had deposited a basket of various cakes.

“I’m afraid we haven’t, miss,” answered the waitress, not comprehending the strange word any better than George did.

“Bit rowdy, isn’t it?” George observed, looking round, when the waitress had gone.

Lois said with earnestness: 

“I simply love these big, noisy places.  They make me feel alive.”

He looked at her.  She was very well dressed—­more stylistic than any girl that he could see in the mirror.  He could not be sure whether or not her yellow eyes had a slight cast; if they had, it was so slight as to be almost imperceptible.  There was no trace of diffidence in them; they commanded.  She was not a girl whom you could masculinely protect.  On the contrary, she would protect not only herself but others.