“I’m sorry I haven’t a table for you just at present,” he was saying.  “But perhaps you’ll let me take your order,”—­and he imitated the obsequious attitude of a waiter.  “A little fresh caviar and a clear soup, and then a fish—?”

The lady took down her lorgnette and raised an appealing face.

“You’re always joking, Brooks,” she chided him, “even when you’re doing things like this!  I can’t get you to talk seriously even when I come all the way from New York to find out what’s going on here.”

“How hungry children eat, for instance?” he queried.

“Dear little things, it’s heartrending!” she exclaimed.  “Especially when I think of my own children, who have to be made to eat.  Tell me the nationality of that adorable tot at the end.”

“Perhaps Miss Bumpus can tell you,” he ventured.  And Janet, though distinctly uncomfortable and hostile to the lady, was surprised and pleased that he should have remembered her name.  “Brooks,” she had called him.  That was his first name.  This strange and sumptuous person seemed intimate with him.  Could it be possible that he belonged to her class?  “Mrs. Brocklehurst, Miss Bumpus.”

Mrs. Brocklehurst focussed her attention on Janet, through the lorgnette, but let it fall immediately, smiling on her brightly, persuasively.

“How d’ye do?” she said, stretching forth a slender arm and taking the girl’s somewhat reluctant hand.  “Do come and sit down beside me and tell me about everything here.  I’m sure you know—­you look so intelligent.”

Her friend from Silliston shot at Janet an amused but fortifying glance and left them, going down to the tables.  Somehow that look of his helped to restore in her a sense of humour and proportion, and her feeling became one of curiosity concerning this exquisitely soigneed being of an order she had read about, but never encountered—­an order which her newly acquired views declared to be usurpers and parasites.  But despite her palpable effort to be gracious perhaps because of it—­Mrs. Brocklehurst had an air about her that was disconcerting!  Janet, however, seemed composed as she sat down.

“I’m afraid I don’t know very much.  Maybe you will tell me something, first.”

“Why, certainly,” said Mrs. Brocklehurst, sweetly when she had got her breath.

“Who is that man?” Janet asked.

“Whom do you mean—­Mr. Insall?”

“Is that his name?  I didn’t know.  I’ve seen him twice, but he never told me.”

“Why, my dear, do you mean to say you haven’t heard of Brooks Insall?”

“Brooks Insall.”  Janet repeated the name, as her eyes sought his figure between the tables.  “No.”

“I’m sure I don’t know why I should have expected you to hear of him,” declared the lady, repentantly.  “He’s a writer—­an author.”  And at this Janet gave a slight exclamation of pleasure and surprise.  “You admire writers?  He’s done some delightful things.”