“Wherever Adrian takes me, it will be beautiful,” she said defiantly.

My little critical humour vanished, for she looked so valiantly adorable in her love for the man.  She was very small and slenderly made, with dark hair, luminous eyes, and ivory-white complexion, a sensitive nose and mouth, a wisp of nerves and passion.  She carried her head high and, for so diminutive a person, appeared vastly important.

Adrian, released from an ex-Lady Mayoress, came up all smiles, to greet us.  Doria gave him a glance which in spite of my devotion to Barbara and my abhorrence of hair’s breadth deviation from strict monogamy dealt me a pang of unregenerate jealousy.  There is only one man in the universe worthy of being so regarded by a woman; and he is oneself.  Every true-minded man will agree with me.  She was inordinately proud of him; proud too of herself in that she had believed in him and given him her love long before he became famous.  Adrian’s eyes softened as they met the glance.  He turned to Barbara.

“It’s in a crowd like this that she looks so mysterious—­an Elemental; but whether of Earth, Air, Fire or Water, I shall spend my life trying to discover.”

The faintest flush possible mounted to that pure ivory-white cheek of hers.  She laughed and caught me by the arm.

“I must carry you to Lady Bagshawe—­you’re taking her in to dinner.  Her husband is Master of the Organ-Grinders’ Company—­”

“No, no, Doria,” said I.

“—­Well, it’s some city company—­I don’t know—­and she is a museum of diseases and a gazetteer of cure places.  Now you know where you are.”

She led me to Lady Bagshawe.  Soon afterwards we trooped down to dinner, during which I learned more of my inside than I knew before, and more of that of Lady Bagshawe than any of her most fervent adorers in their wildest dreams could have ever hoped to ascertain; during which, also, I endeavoured to convince an unknown, but agreeable lady on my left that I did not play polo, whereat, it seemed, her eight brothers were experts; and that Omar Khayyam was a contemporary not of the Prophet Isaiah, but of William the Conqueror.  As for the setting—­I am not an observant man—­but I had an impression of much gold and silver and rare flora on the table, great gold frames enclosing (I doubt not) costly pictures on the walls, many desirable jewels on undesirable bosoms, strong though unsympathetic masculine faces, and such food and drink as Lucullus, poor fellow, did not live long enough to discover.

When the ladies retired, and we moved up towards our host, I found myself between two groups; one discussing the mercantile depravity of a gentleman called Wilmot, of whom I had never heard, the other arguing on dark dilemmas connected with an Abyssinian loan.  A vacant chair happening to be by my side, Adrian, glass in hand, came round the table and sat down.

“How are you getting on?”