‘How disappointing!’ cried their host.  ’I was hoping to give Miss Boyd something quite new in the way of magicians, and behold! she knows all about him.’

‘If she did, I’m quite sure she wouldn’t speak to me,’ said Oliver, with a bantering smile.

They went into the supper-room.

‘Now, how shall we sit?’ said Arbuthnot, glancing round the table.

Oliver looked at Arthur, and his eyes twinkled.

’You must really let my wife and Mr Burdon be together.  They haven’t seen one another for so long that I’m sure they have no end of things to talk about.’  He chuckled to himself.  ’And pray give me Miss Boyd, so that she can abuse me to her heart’s content.’

This arrangement thoroughly suited the gay specialist, for he was able to put the beautiful actress on one side of him and the charming American on the other.  He rubbed his hands.

‘I feel that we’re going to have a delightful supper.’

Oliver laughed boisterously.  He took, as was his habit, the whole conversation upon himself, and Susie was obliged to confess that he was at his best.  There was a grotesque drollery about him that was very diverting, and it was almost impossible to resist him.  He ate and drank with tremendous appetite.  Susie thanked her stars at that moment that she was a woman who knew by long practice how to conceal her feelings, for Arthur, overcome with dismay at the meeting, sat in stony silence.  But she talked gaily.  She chaffed Oliver as though he were an old friend, and laughed vivaciously.  She noticed meanwhile that Haddo, more extravagantly dressed than usual, had managed to get an odd fantasy into his evening clothes:  he wore knee-breeches, which in itself was enough to excite attention; but his frilled shirt, his velvet collar, and oddly-cut satin waistcoat gave him the appearance of a comic Frenchman.  Now that she was able to examine him more closely, she saw that in the last six months he was grown much balder; and the shiny whiteness of his naked crown contrasted oddly with the redness of his face.  He was stouter, too, and the fat hung in heavy folds under his chin; his paunch was preposterous.  The vivacity of his movements made his huge corpulence subtly alarming.  He was growing indeed strangely terrible in appearance.  His eyes had still that fixed, parallel look, but there was in them now at times a ferocious gleam.  Margaret was as beautiful as ever, but Susie noticed that his influence was apparent in her dress; for there could be no doubt that it had crossed the line of individuality and had degenerated into the eccentric.  Her gown was much too gorgeous.  It told against the classical character of her beauty.  Susie shuddered a little, for it reminded her of a courtesan’s.