II

“I suppose you’ve been to see the Twelve and Thirteen,” said Eve, in her new grand, gracious manner to Miss Fancy, when the party was seated at a round, richly-flowered table specially reserved by Mr. Softly Bishop on the Embankment front of the restaurant, and the hors d’oeuvre had begun to circulate on the white cloth, which was as crowded as the gold room.

“I’m afraid I haven’t,” muttered Miss Fancy weakly but with due refinement.  The expression of fear was the right expression.  Eve had put the generally brazen woman in a fright at the first effort.  And the worst was that Miss Fancy did not even know what the Twelve and Thirteen was—­or were.  At the opening of her debut at what she imagined to be the great, yet exclusive, fashionable world, Miss Fancy was failing.  Of what use to be perfectly dressed and jewelled, to speak with a sometimes carefully-corrected accent, to sit at the best table in the London restaurant most famous in the United States, to be affianced to the cleverest fellow she had ever struck, if the wonderful and famous hostess, Mrs. Prohack, whose desirable presence was due only to Softly’s powerful influence in high circles, could floor her at the very outset of the conversation?  It is a fact that Miss Fancy would have given the emerald ring off her left first-finger to be able to answer back.  All Miss Fancy could do was to smite Mr. Softly Bishop with a homicidal glance for that he had not in advance put her wise about something called the Twelve and Thirteen.  It is also a fact that Miss Fancy would have perished sooner than say to Mrs. Prohack the simple words:  “I haven’t the slightest idea what the Twelve and Thirteen are.”  Eve did not disguise her impression that Miss Fancy’s lapse was very strange and disturbing.

“I suppose you’ve seen the new version of the ‘Sacre du Prin-temps,’ Miss Fancy,” said Mrs. Oswald Morfey, that exceedingly modern and self-possessed young married lady.

“Not yet,” said Miss Fancy, and foolishly added:  “We were thinking of going to-night.”

“There won’t be any more performances this season,” said Ozzie, that prince of authorities on the universe of entertainment.

And in this way the affair continued between the four, while Mr. Softly Bishop, abandoning his beloved to her fate, chatted murmuringly with Mr. Prohack about the Oil Market, as to which of course Mr. Prohack was the prince of authorities.  Mrs. Prohack and her daughter and son-in-law ranged at ease over all the arts without exception, save the one art—­that of musical comedy—­in which Miss Fancy was versed.  Mr. Prohack was amazed at the skilled cruelty of his women.  He wanted to say to Miss Fancy:  “Don’t you believe it!  My wife is only a rather nice ordinary housekeeping sort of little woman, and as for my daughter, she cooks her husband’s meals—­and jolly badly, I bet.”  He ought to have been pleased at the discomfiture of Miss Fancy, whom he detested and despised; but he was not; he yearned to succour her; he even began to like her.