That seat having the advantage of isolation, your conversation does not gladden the ears of your neighbour nor theirs yours.

You know what that is like—­if you don’t, well, it’s the kind that if written would read in italics:  Ayah—­kitmutgar—­pukka—­chotar hazri—­syce, with reference, ultra-distinct and emphatic, to Government House, Simla, and my dear old friend, General Methuselah.

Just those little British odds-and-ends which go to the ruling, more or less, of the land of the peacock.  Add to that the general, what shall I say, touch-and-go attire of the majority of the members.  You know what it is like.

Lace collars over reconstructed tailor-mades; pseudo-suede gloves, chiffon scarfs, generally ropey and heliotrope of hue; odd-coloured jerseys affiliated to odd-cut skirts, plus jangling oriental bracelets and chains, and mix that with a few puckered, leather-hued countenances and you get the club’s principal ingredient.

Anglo-Indian.

Anyway the place is conveniently situated, and quite bearable if you can put up with the waiter or the somewhat overdecorated and ever-changing waitress telling you, in front of your guest, that you “can only ’ave cakes and bread-un-butter forrer shilling, every-think-else-is extra.”

Cheery, when you may have been doing your best to make an impression!

Of course every member (if she ever gets as far as this) of every ladies’ club will here draw her pharisaical skirts about her and edge nearer to her neighbour.

“Did you read this”—­quotes—­“awfully good, isn’t it?  Of course it’s meant for the Imperatrix—­the Toga—­the Ninth Century—­the Spook.”

It isn’t!

It’s just typical.

Is there any one thing in any one ladies’ club to differentiate it from its sister establishment—­especially in the canteen?

I will pay one year’s town subscription to any woman knowing, of course, the difference between husks and food, who will honestly declare that her heart has not plumped to her boots after a spur-on-the-moment invitation to a man to lunch or dine at her club.

By spur-on-the-moment I mean when she has not had the time to negotiate with the cook, via the head waiter.

You do not need the menu to tell you that plaice is here your portion; or a lightning glance to ascertain that the exact number of your prunes is six, and that of your guest half a dozen; or just a sip of your coffee—­well! there you begin to talk feverishly and to press liqueurs and cigarettes upon the suffering guest.

But to come back to the club tea-room.

“My dear,” Susan Hetth was saying, jangling with the best, and pitching her voice so that it literally, though slangily, beat the band, “I really think, considering your position and recent bereavement, that you should wear——­”

“Please be quiet, Auntie,” said Leonie, who in a grey and pale mauve confection looked like a field of statice against a pearl-grey sky.  “I came here to talk about you, not clothes.  You see I want to tell you how I have settled things before I sail.”