Lucia’s little lunch-party that day consisted only of four people. Lunch, Lucia considered, was for _intimes_: you sat with your elbows on the table, and all talked together, and learned the news, just as you did on the Green at Riseholme. There was something unwieldy about a large lunch-party; it was a distracted affair, and in the effort to assimilate more news than you could really digest, you forgot half of it. To-day, therefore, there was only Aggie Sandeman who had been to the play last night with Pepino, and was bringing her cousin Adele Brixton (whom Lucia had not yet met, but very much wanted to know), and Stephen Merriall. Lady Brixton was a lean, intelligent American of large fortune who found she got on better without a husband. But as Lord Brixton preferred living in America and she in England, satisfactory arrangements were easily made. Occasionally she had to go to see relatives in America, and he selected such periods for seeing relatives in England. She explained the situation very good-naturedly to Lucia who rather rashly asked after her husband. “In fact,” she said, “we blow kisses to each other from the decks of Atlantic liners going in opposite directions, if it’s calm, and if it’s rough, we’re sick into the same ocean.” Now that would never have been said at Riseholme, or if it was, it would have been very ill thought of, and a forced smile followed by a complete change of conversation would have given it a chilly welcome. Now, out of habit, Lucia smiled a forced smile, and then remembered that you could not judge London by the chaste standards of Riseholme. She turned the forced smile into a genial one. “Too delicious!” she said. “I must tell Pepino that.” “Pep what?” asked Lady Brixton. This was explained; it was also explained that Aggie had been with Pepino to the play last night; in fact there was rather too much explanation going on for social ease, and Lucia thought it was time to tell them all about what she had done last night. She did this in a characteristic manner. “Dear Lady Brixton,” she said, “ever since you came in I’ve been wondering where I have seen you. Of course it was last night, at our darling Marcia’s dance.” This seemed to introduce the desirable topic, and though it was not in the least true, it was a wonderfully good shot. “Yes, I was there,” said Adele. “What a crush. Sheer Mormonism: one man to fifty women.” “How unkind of you! I dined there first; quite a small party. Princess Isabel, who had been down at our dear little Riseholme on Sunday, staying with Olga--such a coincidence----” Lucia stopped just in time; she was about to describe the impromptu dance at Olga’s on Sunday night, but remembered that Stephen knew she had not been to it. So she left the coincidence alone, and went rapidly on: