‘Hardly a friend.’

’I know very well that men are friends when they step up and shake hands with each other.  It is the same when women kiss.’

’When I see women kiss, I always think there is deep hatred at the bottom of it.’

’And there may be deep hatred between you and Mr Crosbie for anything I know to the contrary,’ said Miss Demolines.

‘The very deepest,’ said Johnny, pretending to look grave.

’Ah; then I know he is your bosom friend, and that you will tell him anything I say.  What a strange history that was of his marriage.’

’So I have heard;—­but he is not quite bosom friend enough with me to have told me all the particulars.  I know that his wife is dead.’

‘Dead; oh, yes; she has been dead these two years I should say.’

‘Not so long as that, I should think.’

’Well—­perhaps not.  But it’s ever so long ago;—­quite long enough for him to be married again.  Did you know her?’

‘I never saw her in my life.’

’I knew her—­not well indeed; but I am intimate with her sister, Lady Amelia Gazebee, and I have met her there.  None of that family have married what you may call well.  And now, Mr Eames, pray look at the menu and tell me what I am to eat.  Arrange for me a little dinner of my own, out of the great bill of fare provided.  I always expect some gentleman to do that for me.  Mr Crosbie, you know, only lived with his wife for one month.’

‘So I’ve been told.’

’And a terrible month they had of it.  I used to hear of it.  He doesn’t look that sort of man, does he?’

‘Well;—­no.  I don’t think he does.  But what sort of man do you mean?’

’Why, such a regular Bluebeard!  Of course you know how he treated another girl before he married Lady Alexandrina.  She died of it—­with a broken heart; absolutely died; and there he is, indifferent as possible;—­and would treat me in the same way tomorrow if I would let him.’

Johnny Eames, finding it impossible to talk to Miss Demolines about Lily Dale, took up the card of the dinner and went to work in earnest, recommending his neighbour what to eat and what to pass by.  ’But you have skipped the pate?’ said she, with energy.

’Allow me to ask you to choose mine for me instead.  You are much more fit to do it.’  And she did choose his dinner for him.

They were sitting at a round table, and in order that the ladies and gentlemen should alternate themselves properly, Mr Musselboro was opposite to the host.  Next to him on his right was old Mrs Van Siever, the widow of a Dutch merchant, who was very rich.  She was a ghastly thing to look at, as well from the quantity as from the nature of the wiggeries she wore.  She had not only a false front, but long false curls, as to which it cannot be conceived that she would suppose that anyone would be ignorant as to their falseness.  She was very thin, too, and very small, and putting aside her wiggeries, you would think her to be all eyes.  She was a ghastly old woman to the sight, and not altogether pleasant in her mode of talking.  She seemed to know Mr Musselboro very well, for she called him by his name without any prefix.  He had, indeed, begun life as a clerk in her husband’s office.