"I would if I were you. They say he does things properly. There'll be an awful crowd--a regular bust-up. He only gives one of these entertainments a year. Dancing and Chinese lanterns and champagne in torrents. Won't you go?" "Perhaps later in the evening." Denis was perturbed. He scented a rival in this brutalitarian, though it seemed hardly possible that Angelina should take much notice of him. Meanwhile, he felt in need of some gentlemanly and soothing influence, after such an outpouring of vulgarity. He thought of the bibliographer. He liked Eames; he admired that scholarly detachment. He, too, might end in annotating some masterpiece--who knows? To be a bibliographer--what a calm, studious life! "I think I'll go to Eames," he remarked. "Really? A colourless creature, that Eames. As dry as a stick; a typical Don. I promised him a mineralogical map, by the way. You might tell him I haven't forgotten, will you? I wonder what you can see in the man?" "I rather like him," said Denis. "He knows what he wants." "That is not enough, my young friend!" replied Marten with decision. "A fellow must want something sensible." "What do you call sensible?" "Sanidin, and things like that. Things with pretty names. Eh, Phipps?" Denis said nothing. His friend continued jovially: "The tavern mood is upon me. I am going to Luisella's to get a drink. One gets sick of that Club. Besides, I've taken rather a fancy to that younger sister. The second youngest, I mean; the one with the curly hair--you know! I only wish I knew a bit more Latin." Luisella's grotto-tavern had become quite a famous rendezvous. You could drop in there at any hour and always find company to your liking. Don Francesco had a good deal to do with its discovery; he discovered, at all events, the second eldest of the four orphan sisters who managed the house. After a time, having convinced himself that they were all good penitents and being a kindly sort of man, he thought that other people might like to share in the seductions which the place afforded. He took foreign friends there from time to time, and none were disappointed. The wine was excellent. Russians, excluded from the Club by Mr. Parker's severity, frequented the spot in considerable numbers. They were nicely treated there. Not many nights previously one of the Master's disciples, the athletic young Peter Krasnojabkin, who was credited with being a protege of Madame Steynlin's, had distinguished himself by drinking sixteen bottles at a sitting. He afterwards smashed a few chairs and things, for which he apologized so prettily next morning that the girls would not hear of his paying for the damage. "It's all in the family," they said. "Come and break some more!"