The two men spent the next two hours in entirely different fashion. Stephen Cresswell made a host of new friends with marvellous facility, flirted with many pretty but unnamed ladies, ate _pâté de foie gras_ sandwiches and drank champagne as though it were his first meal of the day. Aaron, on the other hand, found the customary stiffness of his manner only intensified by the Bohemianism of his fellow-guests. The women, with their laughing eyes, their frankly flirtatious speeches, their general air of good-fellowship and lack of reserve, seemed to him simply intolerable. Every time he thought of Henriette, he hated his surroundings and longed for the solitude which, notwithstanding his efforts, he was only partially able to achieve. To escape the new acquaintances whom the poet was continually bringing up to him, he even played for an hour. Afterwards, when the rooms became more crowded, he escaped into a corner and sat looking on. It was exactly the sort of gathering he had expected--a good many young ladies from the stage with their escorts, a strong element of the betting fraternity, a theatrical agent or two, and a sprinkling of those nameless people, always well dressed, always mysterious, who seem to pass through life so easily without toiling or spinning. He was just deciding that, so far as the object of their visit was concerned, the evening had been wasted, when Pamela Keane came suddenly across the room and sat down by his side. "I want to talk to you, Mr. Rodd," she said, throwing herself back in a chair and displaying an amazing amount of white silk stocking. "You are very kind," he murmured. "Mr. Cresswell tells me that you are a lawyer?" "That is so," Aaron admitted, a little startled. "Where are your offices?" "Seventeen Manchester Street, Adelphi," he replied, "third floor." "Can I come and see you at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning?" "With pleasure!" "Good! I'll be there. Not a word to Jack, mind. Come and have a glass of champagne." He drank his glass of champagne and watched his companion drink three. Then she floated off to greet some new-comers and Aaron made his escape. The poet called him up in the hall. "The usual sort of crowd here," he remarked, as they left the house. "Pretty hot lot, some of those bookmakers and jockeys, but I didn't see a soul whom I'd ever suspect of getting off his own little run. What about you?" "Come and see me at twelve o'clock to-morrow morning," was all the poet could get out of his companion that night.... Miss Pamela Keane was marvellously punctual. In a blue serge costume straight from Paris, a hat which was a marvel of simplicity, a wonderful veil and a wave of perfume, she swept into Aaron Rodd's room the next morning as eleven o'clock was striking. He handed her the clients' chair, into which she sank, a little breathless. "Say, this is some climb," she remarked. "Don't you have any elevators in your offices on this side?"