During the discussion of the golden plovers provided for the absent Mr. Chapel, I became aware that Agnes Lockett was being drenched and bewildered with the flood of celebrated names that was playing on her as if from some fire-hose. Actors, authors, politicians, social stars, soldiers and sailors were deluging her, and, without exception, they had all been here, by their Christian names, last week, or at any rate were coming next week. Without exception, too, each of them had told Mrs. Withers in confidence what she repeated now to Agnes, knowing that it would go no farther. George had assured her of this, Arthur had hinted that, Jenny had thought this probable, Maudie had scouted the idea altogether, but however much they had disagreed, it was certain that they would all be here on Thursday evening, and Agnes could talk to them herself. As I listened and looked, I saw that a species of desperation was seizing Agnes; she was finding the recital absolutely intolerable. Then an idea seemed to strike her, and looking round to catch a friendly eye, she caught mine, and spoke to me across the table. “Have you seen Robert Oriole lately?” she asked in her delicious husky voice, that was so unlike the canary-tone of Mrs. Withers. But as she asked me this, she gave me a peremptory affirmative nod of which I could not miss the significance. I had never heard of Robert Oriole before, but I was certain that Agnes for some reason of her own insisted that I did know him, and accordingly I answered in that sense. “We went to a play together last night,” I said. At that precise moment, without a pang or a cry, Robert Oriole was born. * * * * * The new name, of course, instantly challenged Mrs. Withers’s whole attention, as Agnes had designed that it should. Devoted as she was to old and celebrated names, new names that she had never heard of demanded the keenest of inquiries. “Robert Oriole?” she said. “Who can it have been who was speaking of Robert Oriole the other day?” Agnes’s brilliant smile shot out and sheathed itself again. “Ah! who isn’t talking about Robert Oriole?” she said. Much as Mrs. Withers liked appearing to know, she liked really knowing better, and surrendered. “Was it Maudie?” she said. “I can’t remember.”