“One short, one woman short, evidently, for her dinner to-night: besought me to go. But you shall have your play all the same, and a dear sweet woman to take to it. Guess! No. I’ll tell you: Aggie. She was longing to go, and so it’s a kindness all round. You will have somebody more exciting to talk to than your poor old _sposa_, and dearest Aggie will get her play, and Marcia will be ever so grateful to me. I shall miss the play, but I will go another night unless you tell me it is no good....” Of course the _Evening Gazette_ would contain no further news of the chatelaine at The Hurst, but Lucia turned to Hermione’s column with a certain eagerness, for there might be something about the Duchess’s dinner this evening. Hermione did not seem to have heard of it, but if Hermione came to lunch to-morrow, he would hear of it then. She rang him up.... * * * * * Lucia’s kindness to Marcia Whitby met with all sorts of rewards. She got there, as was her custom in London, rather early, so that she could hear the names of all the guests as they arrived, and Marcia, feeling thoroughly warm-hearted to her, for she had tried dozens of women to turn her party from thirteen into fourteen, called her Lucia instead of Mrs. Lucas. It was no difficulty to Lucia to reciprocate this intimacy in a natural manner, for she had alluded to the Duchess as Marcia behind her back, for weeks, and now the syllables tripped to her tongue with the familiarity of custom. “Sweet of you to ask me, dear Marcia,” she said. “Pepino and I only arrived from Riseholme an hour or two ago, and he took Aggie Sandeman to the theatre instead of me. Such a lovely Sunday at Riseholme: you must spare a week-end and come down and vegetate. Olga Shuttleworth was there with Princess Isabel, and she sang too divinely on Sunday evening, and then, would you believe it, we turned on the gramophone and danced.” “What a coincidence!” said Marcia, “because I’ve got a small dance to-night, and Princess Isabel is coming. But not nearly so chic as your dance at Riseholme.” She moved toward the door to receive the guests who were beginning to arrive, and Lucia with ears open for distinguished names, had just a moment’s qualm for having given the impression which she meant to give, that she had been dancing to Olga’s gramophone. It was no more than momentary, and presently the Princess arrived, and was led round by her hostess, to receive curtseys. “And of course you know Mrs. Lucas,” said Marcia. “She’s been telling me about your dancing to the gramophone at her house on Sunday.” Lucia recovered from her curtsey. “No, dear Marcia,” she said. “It was at Olga’s, in fact----” The Princess fixed her with a royal eye before she passed on, as if she seemed to understand.