In spite of all the splendours and the elaborated convenience, he washed himself in good hot water, and wished he were having a bath, chiefly because of the wardrobe of marvellous Turkish towels.  Then he clicked his way back to his bedroom, changed his shirt and combed his hair in the blue silk bedroom with the Greuze picture, and felt a little dim and superficial surprise.  He had fallen into country house parties before, but never into quite such a plushy sense of riches.  He felt he ought to have his breath taken away.  But alas, the cinema has taken our breath away so often, investing us in all the splendours of the splendidest American millionaire, or all the heroics and marvels of the Somme or the North Pole, that life has now no magnate richer than we, no hero nobler than we have been, on the film. Connu! Connu!  Everything life has to offer is known to us, couldn’t be known better, from the film.

So Aaron tied his tie in front of a big Venice mirror, and nothing was a surprise to him.  He found a footman hovering to escort him to the dining-room—­a real Italian footman, uneasy because milady’s dinner was unsettled.  He entered the rather small dining-room, and saw the people at table.

He was told various names:  bowed to a young, slim woman with big blue eyes and dark hair like a photograph, then to a smaller rather colourless young woman with a large nose:  then to a stout, rubicund, bald colonel, and to a tall, thin, Oxford-looking major with a black patch over his eye—­both these men in khaki:  finally to a good-looking, well-nourished young man in a dinner-jacket, and he sat down to his soup, on his hostess’ left hand.  The colonel sat on her right, and was confidential.  Little Sir William, with his hair and his beard white like spun glass, his manner very courteous and animated, the purple facings of his velvet jacket very impressive, sat at the far end of the table jesting with the ladies and showing his teeth in an old man’s smile, a little bit affected, but pleasant, wishing everybody to be happy.

Aaron ate his soup, trying to catch up.  Milady’s own confidential Italian butler, fidelity itself, hovered quivering near, spiritually helping the newcomer to catch up.  Two nice little entree dishes, specially prepared for Aaron to take the place of the bygone fish and vol au-vents of the proper dinner, testified to the courtesy and charity of his hostess.

Well, eating rapidly, he had more or less caught up by the time the sweets came.  So he swallowed a glass of wine and looked round.  His hostess with her pearls, and her diamond star in her grey hair, was speaking of Lilly and then of music to him.

“I hear you are a musician.  That’s what I should have been if I had had my way.”

“What instrument?” asked Aaron.

“Oh, the piano.  Yours is the flute, Mr. Lilly says.  I think the flute can be so attractive.  But I feel, of course you have more range with the piano.  I love the piano—­and orchestra.”