a text from the Koran on an orange ground, and a small green camel embroidered over the entrance, was the most striking on the ground.  Outside it they found Jack Cardigan in a dark blue tie (he had once played for Harrow), batting with a Malacca cane to show how that fellow ought to have hit that ball.  He piloted them in.  Assembled in Winifred’s corner were Imogen, Benedict with his young wife, Val Dartie without Holly, Maud and her husband, and, after Soames and his two were seated, one empty place.

“I’m expecting Prosper,” said Winifred, “but he’s so busy with his yacht.”

Soames stole a glance.  No movement in his wife’s face!  Whether that fellow were coming or not, she evidently knew all about it.  It did not escape him that Fleur, too, looked at her mother.  If Annette didn’t respect his feelings, she might think of Fleur’s!  The conversation, very desultory, was syncopated by Jack Cardigan talking about “mid-off.”  He cited all the “great mid-offs” from the beginning of time, as if they had been a definite racial entity in the composition of the British people.  Soames had finished his lobster, and was beginning on pigeon-pie, when he heard the words, “I’m a small bit late, Mrs. Dartie,” and saw that there was no longer any empty place.  That fellow was sitting between Annette and Imogen.  Soames ate steadily on, with an occasional word to Maud and Winifred.  Conversation buzzed around him.  He heard the voice of Profond say: 

“I think you’re mistaken, Mrs. Forsyde; I’ll—­I’ll bet Miss Forsyde agrees with me.”

“In what?” came Fleur’s clear voice across the table.

“I was sayin’, young gurls are much the same as they always were —­there’s very small difference.”

“Do you know so much about them?”

That sharp reply caught the ears of all, and Soames moved uneasily on his thin green chair.

“Well, I don’t know, I think they want their own small way, and I think they always did.”

“Indeed!”

“Oh, but—­Prosper,” Winifred interjected comfortably, “the girls in the streets—­the girls who’ve been in munitions, the little flappers in the shops; their manners now really quite hit you in the eye.”

At the word “hit” Jack Cardigan stopped his disquisition; and in the silence Monsieur Profond said: 

“It was inside before, now it’s outside; that’s all.”

“But their morals!” cried Imogen.

“Just as moral as they ever were, Mrs. Cardigan, but they’ve got more opportunity.”

The saying, so cryptically cynical, received a little laugh from Imogen, a slight opening of Jack Cardigan’s mouth, and a creak from Soames’ chair.

Winifred said:  “That’s too bad, Prosper.”

“What do you say, Mrs. Forsyde; don’t you think human nature’s always the same?”

Soames subdued a sudden longing to get up and kick the fellow.  He heard his wife reply: