Fräulein Lipmann and the rest had already gone inside. Several people were arriving in taxis and on foot. Kreisler got in without difficulty. He was the only man present not in evening-dress. CHAPTER II One certain thing amongst many uncertainties about the English club, the Bonnington Club, was that it had not yet found itself quite. Its central room (and that was all there was of it—a shell of a house) reminded you of a public swimming-bath when it was used as a ballroom, and when used as a studio you thought of a concert-hall. But one had a respect for it. It had cost a good deal to build. It was quite phenomenally handsome as seen from the street, and was graceful. It made a cheerful show, with pink, red, and pale blue paper-chains and Chinese lanterns, one week for some festivity; and the next, sparely robed in dark red curtains, would settle its walls gravely to receive some houseless quartet. In this manner it paid its way. Some phlegmatic but obstinate power had brought it into existence. “Found a club, found a club!” it had reiterated in the depths of certain anonymous minds, with sleepy tenacity. Some one sighed, got up and went round to another, and said perhaps a club had better be founded. The other assented and subscribed something, to get rid of the other. In the course of time a young French architect had been entrusted with the job. A club. Yes. What sort of a club? The architect could not find out. Something to be used for drawing-classes, social functions, a reading-room, etc. He saw he was on the wrong tack. He went away and made his arrangements accordingly. He produced a design of an impressive and to all appearance finished house. It was a sincerely ironic masterpiece, but with a perfect gravity, and even stateliness, of appearance. It was the most non-committing façade, the most absolutely unfinal interior, the most tentative set of doors, ever seen: a monster of reservation. Not only had it been put to every conceivable use itself, but it dragged the club with it, as it were. The club changed and metamorphosed itself with its changes. The club became athletic or sedentary according to the shifts and exigencies of the building’s existence. The members turned out in dress-clothes or gymnasium get-ups as the building’s destiny prompted, to back it up. One month they would have to prove that it _was_ a gymnasium, the next that it _was_ a drawing-school. The inviting of the German contingent was a business move. They might be enticed into membership, and would in any event spread the fame of the club, getting and subsequently giving some conception of the resources of the club-house building. The _salle_ was arranged very prettily. The adjoining rooms were hung with the drawings and paintings of the club members. Kreisler ever since the scene on the boulevard had felt a reckless gaiety and irresponsibility, which he did not conceal.