WE left Bertha and Madeline in the lift going up to call on Miss Belvoir. This lady was sitting by the fire, holding a screen. She came forward and greeted them with great cordiality. She was a small, dark, amiable-looking woman about thirty. Her hair and eyes were of a blackness one rarely sees, her complexion was clear and bright, her figure extremely small and trim. Without being exactly pretty, she was very agreeable to the eye, and also had the attraction of looking remarkably different from other people. Indeed her costume was so uncommon as to be on the verge of eccentricity. Her face had a slightly Japanese look, and she increased this effect by wearing a gown of which a part was decidedly Japanese. In fact it was a kimono covered with embroidery in designs consisting of a flight of storks, some chrysanthemums, and a few butterflies, in the richest shades of blue. In the left-hand corner were two little yellow men fighting with a sword in each hand; otherwise it was all blue. It was almost impossible to keep one’s eyes from this yellow duel; the little embroidered figures looked so fierce and emotional and appeared to be enjoying themselves so much.

The room in which Miss Belvoir received her friends was very large, long and low, and had a delightful view of the river from the Embankment. It was a greyish afternoon, vague and misty, and one saw from the windows views that looked exactly like pictures by Whistler. The room was furnished in a Post-Impressionist style, chiefly in red, black and brown; the colours were all plain—that is to say, there were no designs except on the ceiling, which was cosily covered with large, brilliantly tinted, life-sized parrots.

Miss Belvoir’s brother, Fred, often declared that when he came home late, which he generally did—between six and nine in the morning were his usual hours—he always had to stop himself from getting a gun, and he was afraid that some day he might lose his self-control and be tempted to shoot the parrots. He was an excellent shot.

The room was full of low bookcases crammed with books, and large fat cushions on the floor. They looked extremely comfortable, but as a matter of fact nobody ever liked sitting on them. When English people once overcame their natural shyness so far as to sit down on them, they were afraid they would never be able to get up again.

Three or four people were dotted about the room, but no one had ventured on the cushions. There was one young lady whose hair was done in the early Victorian style, parted in the middle, with bunches of curls each side. As far as her throat she appeared to be strictly a Victorian—very English, about 1850—but from that point she suddenly became Oriental, and for the rest was dressed principally in what looked like beaded curtains.

Leaning on the mantelpiece and smoking a cigarette with great ease of manner was a striking and agreeable-looking young man, about eight and twenty, whom Miss Belvoir introduced as Mr. Bevan Fairfield. He was fair and good-looking, very dandified in dress, and with a rather humorously turned-up nose and an excessively fluent way of speaking.

“I was just scolding Miss Belvoir,” he said, “when you came in. She’s been playing me the trick she’s always playing. She gets me here under the pretext that some celebrity’s coming and then they don’t turn up. Signor Semolini, the Futurist, I was asked to meet. And then she gets a telegram—or says she does—that he can’t come. Very odd, very curious, they never can come—at any rate when I’m here. Some people would rather say, ‘Fancy, I was asked to Miss Belvoir’s the other day to meet Semolini, only he didn’t turn up,’ than not say anything at all. Some people think it’s a distinction not to have met Semolini at Miss Belvoir’s.”

“It’s quite a satisfactory distinction,” remarked Bertha. “Semolini has been to see us once, but he really isn’t very interesting.”

“Ah, but still you’re able to say that. I sha’n’t be able to say, ‘I met Semolini the other day, and, do you know, he’s such a disappointment.’”

“Well, I couldn’t help it, Bevan,” murmured Miss Belvoir, smiling.

“No, I know you couldn’t help it. Of course you couldn’t help it. That’s just it—you never expected the man. I went to lunch with another liar last week—I beg your pardon, Miss Belvoir—who asked me to meet DusÉ. She was so sorry she couldn’t come at the last minute. She sent a telegram. Well, all I ask is, let me see the telegram.”

“But you couldn’t; he ’phoned,” objected Miss Belvoir.

“So you say,” returned the young man, as he passed a cup of tea to Bertha.“Will you have China tea and lemon and be smart, or India tea and milk and sugar and enjoy it? I don’t mind owning that I like stewed tea—I like a nice comfortable washer-woman’s cup of tea myself. Well, I suppose we’re all going to the Indian ball at the Albert Hall. What are you all going as? I suppose Miss Belvoir’s going as a nautch-girl, or a naughty girl or something.”

“I’m going as a Persian dancer,” said Miss Belvoir.

“I’m not going as anything,” said Bertha. “I hate fancy balls. One takes such a lot of trouble and then people look only at their own dresses. If you want to dress up for yourself, you’d enjoy it just as much if you dressed up alone, I think.”

“Well, of course it’s not so much fun for women,” said Mr. Fairfield. “You are always more or less in fancy dress; it’s no change for you. But for us it is fun. The last one I went to I had a great success as a forget-me-not. Miss Belvoir and I met an elephant, an enormous creature, galumphing along, knocking everybody down, and wasn’t it clever of me? I recognised it! ‘Good heavens!’ I exclaimed, ‘this must be the Mitchells!’ And so it turned out to be. Mr. Mitchell was one leg, Mrs. Mitchell the other, two others were their great friends and their little nephew was the trunk. Frightfully uncomfortable, but they did attract a great deal of attention. They nearly died of the stuffiness, but they took a prize. My friend Linsey usually takes a prize, though he always contrives some agonising torture for himself. The last time he was a letter-box, and he was simply dying of thirst and unable to move. I saved his life by pouring some champagne down the slit for the letters, on the chance. Another friend of mine who was dressed in a real suit of armour had to be lifted into the taxi, and when he arrived home he couldn’t get out. When he at last persuaded the cabman to carry him to his door—it was six o’clock in the morning—the man said, ‘Oh, never mind, sir, we’ve had gentlemen worse than this!’ And the poor fellow hadn’t had a single drop or crumb the whole evening, because his visor was down and he couldn’t move his arm to lift it up. If you went as anything, Mrs. Kellynch, you ought to be a China Shepherdess. I never saw anyone so exactly like one.”

“And what ought I to go as?” asked Madeline.

“You would look your best as a Florentine page,” replied Mr. Fairfield. “Or both of you would look very nice as late Italians.”

“I’m afraid we shall be late Englishwomen unless we go now,” said Bertha. “I can only stay a very few minutes to-day, Miss Belvoir.”

They persuaded her to remain a little longer, and Mr. Fairfield continued to chatter on during the remainder of their visit. He did not succeed in persuading them to join in making up the party for the Indian ball.