A rather gruff noise, clearly Pepino’s voice, came from the instrument, but she trusted it was inaudible to the others, and she soon broke in again talking very rapidly. “Oh, that is kind of you, your Highness,” she said. “It would be too delightful. To-morrow: charmed. Delighted.” She replaced the mouthpiece, and instantly began to talk again from the point at which she had left off. “Yes, and of course Herbert Alton was there,” she said. “His show opens in a fortnight, and how we shall all meet there at the private view and laugh at each other’s caricatures! What is it that Rousseau--is it Rousseau?--says, about our not being wholly grieved at the misfortunes of our friends? So true! Bertie is rather wicked sometimes though, but still one forgives him everything. Ah, the coffee is boiling at last.” Pepino, as Lucia had foreseen, rang up again almost immediately, and she told him he had missed the most charming little lunch party, because he would go to his club. Her guests, of course, were burning to know to whom she had curtsied, but Lucia gave no information on the point. Adele Brixton and Aggie presently went off to a matinée, but Stephen remained behind. That looked rather well, Lucia thought, for she had noticed that often a handsome and tolerably young man lingered with the hostess when other guests had gone. There was something rather _chic_ about it; if it happened very constantly, or if at another house they came together or went away together, people would begin to talk, quite pleasantly of course, about his devotion to her. Georgie had been just such a _cavaliere servente_. Stephen, for his part, was quite unconscious of any such scintillations in Lucia’s mind: he merely knew that it was certainly convenient for an unattached man to have a very pleasant house always to go to, where he would be sure of hearing things that interested Hermione. “Delicious little lunch party,” he said. “What a charming woman Lady Brixton is.” “Dear Adele,” said Lucia dreamily. “Charming, isn’t she? How pleased she was at the thought of meeting Alf! Do look in after dinner that night, Stephen, I wish I could ask you to dine, but I expect to be crammed as it is. Dine on Wednesday, though: let me see, Marcelle comes that night. What a rush next week will be!” Stephen waited for her to allude to the voice to which she had curtsied, but he waited in vain. CHAPTER VII This delicious little luncheon-party had violently excited Adele Brixton: she was thrilled to the marrow at Lucia’s curtsey to the telephone.