Both Thorndyke and Crane when they were together desired to keep Constance Maitland out of their conversation, but by one of those contradictory and involuntary impulses which cannot be accounted for, her name always came up between them. This time it was by Crane’s saying, after a while: “Have you seen Miss Maitland lately?” “I dined there night before last,” answered Thorndyke. Crane knew that Constance Maitland’s favourite form of entertaining was at little dinners, which were perfection in the way of guests and service. He had never been asked to one of them, and thought gloomily that after Constance’s very plain speaking to him at their last interview his chance of being invited was thin to attenuation. “Was that the night that fellow Hudgins from Texas dined there?” asked Crane, who had not taken Constance’s sound advice to cultivate reticence. “Yes, and I never saw a better dinner-man than Hudgins, nor was ever at a more agreeable dinner.” “Bosh! Hudgins?” “Yes, Hudgins. The fellow has a quiet manner, a soft voice, and the most delightful and archaic reverence for ‘the ladies,’ as he calls them. It is like what history tells us of General Sam Houston. Hudgins was a screaming success at the dinner.” Seeing that the account of Hudgins’s triumph gave Crane acute discomfort, Thomdyke, lighting a fresh cigar, kept on remorselessly: “Miss Maitland wanted to ask some really representative man to meet Sir Mark le Poer, a very agreeable and considerable Englishman, one of the permanent under-secretaries in the British Foreign Office--it seems he is a great friend of hers. He had been gorgeously entertained by all the retired trades-people who are in the smart set here, but complained that he hadn’t met any Americans--they _would_ ask all the diplomats to meet him, fellows that bored him to death in Europe and still more so here. It seems that Miss Maitland had heard that the long, thin, soft-voiced Texan was delightful at dinner--so she asked me to bring him to call, and the dinner invitation followed. Besides Sir Mark and Hudgins and myself, there was Cathcart--a navy man--good old New England family, four generations in the navy, travelled man of the world, and flower of civilisation. But Hudgins was easily the star of the occasion. There were three other women present besides Miss Maitland, all of them charming women, who know the world and command it; and the way they, as well as the Englishman and the naval officer, fell in love with Hudgins and his soft Texas accent, and his stupendous Texas yarns, and his way of looking at things--well, it was a show.” “Oh, come, Thorndyke--Hudgins!”