Mr. Crewe was a little late.  Important matters, he said, had detained him at the last moment, and he particularly enjoined Mrs. Pomfret’s butler to listen carefully for the telephone, and twice during lunch it was announced that Mr. Crewe was wanted.  At first he was preoccupied, and answered absently across the table the questions of the Englishman and the Austrian about American politics, and talked to the lady of social prominence on his right not at all; nor to Mrs. Pomfret’—­who excused him.  Being a lady of discerning qualities, however, the hostess remarked that Mr. Crewe’s eyes wandered more than once to the far end of the oval table, where Victoria sat, and even Mrs. Pomfret could not deny the attraction.  Victoria wore a filmy gown of mauve that infinitely became her, and a shadowy hat which, in the semi-darkness of the dining room, was a wondrous setting for her shapely head.  Twice she caught Mr. Crewe’s look upon her and returned it amusedly from under her lashes,—­and once he could have sworn that she winked perceptibly.  What fires she kindled in his deep nature it is impossible to say.

She had kindled other fires at her side.  The tall young Englishman had lost interest in American politics, had turned his back upon poor Alice Pomfret, and had forgotten the world in general.  Not so the Austrian, who was on the other side of Alice, and who could not see Victoria.  Mr. Crewe, by his manner and appearance, had impressed him as a person of importance, and he wanted to know more.  Besides, he wished to improve his English, and Alice had been told to speak French to him.  By a lucky chance, after several blind attempts, he awakened the interest of the personality.

“I hear you are what they call reform in America?”

This was not the question that opened the gates.

“I don’t care much for the word,” answered Mr. Crewe, shortly; “I prefer the word progressive.”

Discourse on the word “progressive” by the Austrian almost a monologue.  But he was far from being discouraged.

“And Mrs. Pomfret tells me they play many detestable tricks on you—­yes?”

“Tricks!” exclaimed Mr. Crewe, the memory of many recent ones being fresh in his mind; “I should say so.  Do you know what a caucus is?”

“Caucus—­caucus?  It brings something to my head.  Ah, I have seen a picture of it, in some English book.  A very funny picture—­it is in fun, yes?”

“A picture?” said Mr. Crewe.  “Impossible!”

“But no,” said the Austrian, earnestly, with one finger to his temples.  “It is a funny picture, I know.  I cannot recall.  But the word caucus I remember.  That is a droll word.”

“Perhaps, Baron,” said Victoria, who had been resisting an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh, “you have been reading ’Alice in Wonderland.’”

The Englishman, Beatrice Chillingham, and some others (among whom were not Mr. Crewe and Mrs. Pomfret) gave way to an extremely pardonable mirth, in which the good-natured baron joined.