“There is always a woman too many,” snapped Lady Surplice, whereupon Dame Warp strode forward and said bitterly between her teeth: “I see I am not wanted. Let it never be said that a decent woman--I said a _decent_ woman--ever stood in the way of her friends’ enjoyment. I will go.” She was, however, soothed by Monsieur des Beaux-Aces, whilst the other gentlemen very properly laughed the superstition to scorn. In particular Mr. Warp, who was eminent in private life for his researches into the defunct branch of political thought once known as Liberalism, but was better known in public as the husband of Dame Warp, distinguished himself by the elegant scholarship of his scepticism. Nor, said Dwight-Rankin, were the ladies--to wit, Shelmerdene, the Lady Fay Paradise, Lady Pynte, Miss Pamela Star and the Lady Amelia Peep, who was a young lady of the highest fashion with her hair parted at the side, a talent for writing poetry, and a governing-classes voice--nor were they behindhand with their ridicule of so childish a fancy as Lady Surplice’s, that they could be susceptible of the least harm through sitting thirteen at table. “Dinner,” said the _doyen_ of the butlers from the door, “is served, my lady.” “Talbot!” cried Lady Surplice. “How dared you not warn me that we were thirteen for dinner? Why do you not answer me? Is this a time for silence?” “Decidedly,” said the Lord Chancellor. “For I am hungry.” “My lady,” said the wretched Talbot, “I am sorry. It quite escaped my notice. I will send in my resignation in the morning.” Says my lady with a high look: “Talbot, you will expiate your sin now. You will at once leave the house. You will walk round St. James’s Square. And you will invite the first person you meet in to dine with me. Go.” The conversation after the butler had gone became, said Dwight-Rankin, rather strained; and only the polished genius of Lady Surplice could have sustained it at anything approaching a well-informed level, as when, turning to the Lady Amelia Peep, she said: “And what, my child, is your father doing to-night? I had asked him to dine with me, but he said he was engaged. I hope it is not serious.” “Wearing,” said the Lady Amelia, “rather than serious. He is in S. W. 1 district, in the queue outside Buck House, waiting to be made a Duke in the New Year’s Honours. He is so old-fashioned in his tastes! He will be wanting to learn dancing soon.”