Colonel Stark’s Christmas Eve dinner-party at the Metropole did not belie his reputation for bibulous hospitality. A tray of cocktails, poised unsteadily on a tiny table, opened the proceedings; sherry accompanied the soup; Chambertin followed Niersteiner (“patriotism,” announced the Weasel, quoting Bismarck, “stops at the palate”), Bollinger preceded port and brandy.

They sat down, a round dozen of them, to a round table, red with holly and white with mistletoe, in a private sitting-room on the first floor: three married couples, the Starks, the Jamesons, Colonel and Mrs. Mallory (a jolly old Artillery “dug-out,” well over seventy, with red cheeks, white moustaches, and a pink and white wife, five years his junior, to match): Harold Bromley, very shy with Mrs. Armitage, a sprightly middle-aged widow, alternately horsy and languorous: Torrington, a fair pale dark-eyed boy, who wore the three stars of a Captain, and told Patricia, when she asked what his brick-red medal-ribbon betokened, “That’s the Vic. C.,^[3] Mrs. Jameson”: Purves, fresh from Oxford, with a budding moustache and a Balliol drawl, still self-conscious about his subaltern’s kit: Lodden, a fierce-looking black-moustached Major of Territorials, who appeared in a frightful rage about the world in general: and Pettigrew, a silent youngster, not in the least shy, who twinkled whenever one spoke to him.

They ate; and they drank; and they talked; slowly, and except for Lodden, without any undue excitement.

Said Lodden to Mrs. Mallory, stabbing furiously at his last morsel of fish: “But the thing’s a scandal. A positive scandal.”

“What’s a scandal?” asked the Weasel from the opposite end of the table.

“I was talking about the Foreign Office, Colonel. They tell me that cotton’s pouring into Germany, simply pouring in, through Holland.”

“Oh, I thought you meant a really amusing scandal, Major,” put in Mrs. Armitage.

“Plenty of that about in Brighton, if one looks for it,” scowled the Major.

Everybody laughed: and Lodden, distinctly pleased with himself, attacked the next course. The Burgundy arrived: and with its outpouring, talk quickened. The two Colonels fell into an argument about who won the Grand Military Steeplechase in ’93; Mrs. Armitage, abandoning Bromley as hopeless, turned her attention to Pettigrew and Purves,—repartees snapping back and forwards between the three of them; Mrs. Mallory did her best to smooth another grievance of Lodden’s; Peter and Alice talked Devonshire, her county.

Said Torrington to Patricia, “I hear your husband may be coming to us, Mrs. Jameson. If he does you must come down to Brighton and stay.”—sotto voce—“I’ll find you a horse to ride. It’s against regulations, of course....”

“How did you know about Peter?” smiled Patricia, looking her stateliest in black velvet.

“I’m helping the Colonel in the office. Light duty, you know. He told me he meant to get your husband and that other chap, Bromley. The Colonel usually gets what he goes for.” He looked meaningly across at Alice, and added maliciously. “By the way, aren’t you Jacky Baynet’s sister?”

“Yes.”

“Jacky was devilish cut-up when the old man married Alice....”

Waiters brought in the champagne, three magnums.

“I am perfectly certain,” drawled Purves—in the middle of a hush—to the widow, “that any more wine will have a most intoxicating affect on the party.”

“Turn his glass down, Mrs. Armitage.” This from the Weasel. “We musn’t let the children get into bad habits.”

Mrs. Armitage obeyed: and the two struggled amiably together, Pettigrew twinkling over the fray.

“Peter,” lisped Alice, bubbling glass at red lips, “Douglas is so keen on you and your friend coming to us.”

Our Mr. Jameson, whose head was very nearly as good as the Weasel’s own, drained his bumper before replying. “Oh, we’re coming,” he said.

“Douglas will be pleased. Douglas dear,” she called across to her husband, “I’ve got you two new officers.”

By now the whole table, not excepting Bromley, were in that pleasant state when the better-class Englishman becomes almost as talkative as the average foreigner.

“Don’t talk shop in mess, me dear,” beamed Stark: and to Mallory, “How long did it take you to discipline your wife, sir?”

Mallory, (“Sir” by right of age), looked across at his Hetty, said: “Hopeless task, Stark. Hopeless task.”

By general request, the ladies did not rise with the port. They drank the King-Emperor’s health, proposed by Purves as the most junior officer present: a Merry Christmas (Colonel Mallory); and “Gott strafe Germany,” (Major Lodden).

The Weasel looked at his watch. “If you youngsters”—he winked at Mallory—“want to dance, it’s about time we went downstairs.”

Alice rustled out with the ladies: her husband came over to Peter and Bromley; said: “Better come to my office, both of you, the day after tomorrow.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage it, sir,” replied Bromley. “I may be on duty.”

“Then get some one else to do your duty,” snapped the Weasel. It was the only sign he gave, during the whole evening, of an alcoholic consumption which would have put any ordinary man under the table.

“Rummy devil,” confided Torrington to Peter and Bromley, as they strolled downstairs. “I was in his battery at Le Cateau. Brave! My hat—” this from a V.C.—“if his wife knew how he really got that D.S.O. she’d have a fit.”

“Tell me,” said Peter. But Torrington, who won his own “gong” at the same time, grew suddenly shy; broke off the conversation.

They descended to the cellar-like dancing-room, found it crowded. Rag-time thumped; lights blazed; couples slithered. Purves, too gentlemanly for words, was already partnering Mrs. Armitage: Pettigrew had taken the Colonel’s wife: Mrs. Mallory, despite her husband’s jocular entreaties, refused to dance: Major Lodden was grousing to Patricia.

“How about another liqueur?” suggested Torrington.

“I don’t think we’d better join the Gunners after all,” laughed Bromley to Peter: but he went to the bar with them just the same. There, they found the Weasel, drinking brandy-and-soda.

“You youngsters had better not drink any more tonight,” he commanded. “Why aren’t you dancing?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” from Torrington, “that I quite approve of officers dancing in their khaki.”

“I’m quite sure I don’t”—the Colonel’s blue eyes hardened—“but the ladies insist.”

They stood chatting till the music stopped. None of the four had drunk too much: but each of them, according to his capacity, had had quite enough. Bromley detailed a South African experience; Torrington capped it with a story of the Retreat; the Colonel listened professionally.

Peter had arrived at that mellow stage when he could regard the failures of our Mr. Jameson from a standpoint of pleasant detachment: in which state he decided that our Mr. Jameson was inclined to take life a little too seriously. During the remainder of the evening—except for the last “John Peel” which Torrington claimed—he and Patricia danced accurately with each other....