I said this conversation was curious, but perhaps that was not quite the word. Slightly distasteful would be nearer, for of course you see what it all implied. It implied that Evie might easily be dragged into some trumpery quarrel between Louie Causton and Miriam Levey. For Miriam would not be at all above concluding that Louie had schemed to get her place, and that I had thrown my influence into the balance; and anybody could always make poor Kitty agree with them. I didn't want Evie mixed up in anything of that kind. I was even a little sorry she had been to see Louie. How little, for my own part, there existed in the way of affection between Louie and myself you already know; and, if the thing was not quite the same from Louie's point of view, I did not see that any useful end would be served by their being much together. On that morning when Louie had first made her ridiculous suggestion about jealousy, her whole manner had been rather that of one who throws up the sponge, ceases to exercise care, I don't know what; and there is no sense in deliberately manufacturing something that doesn't exist. And about that other visit to Gray's Inn. I am quite sure that Miriam Levey would not scruple to hurt me in any way she could.... There's the telephone; Whitlock, I expect. _10th May._--In a week Evie is to give her first dinner-party. Naturally she is a little timorous about it. The fact that Pepper, with whom, I am sorry to say, she gets on no better, will be there to watch her, would be quite enough to flurry her; but there will also be other people there whom she hasn't seen yet--the Hasties, the Campbells, Sichel, a Mrs Richmond (a very smart little woman, a friend of Pepper's) and others. Poor dear, it will be rather an ordeal for her, and no wonder she spoke to me the other night a little crossly. It hurt a little at the time, but I have forgotten it. I will put it down, however. Among all these "Hons. and Sirs," as she calls them, plain familiar Whitlock and Billy Izzard (I am dragging Billy in because these people may be useful to him when he has got over his pageant craze) were her chief comforts; but the question of the final chair, a lady's, had arisen. There being nobody else I particularly wanted, I had been disposed to call on Pepper, who can always produce a prettily frocked woman or a well-turned-out young man at a moment's notice; but Evie had managed to get a dig in at Pepper, at which I laughed heartily. "He might bring Mrs Toothill for all we know," she had said. "No, Jeff, it's our party," she had demurred, and had then ruminated.... "All right, anybody you like," I had agreed cheerfully. "You don't like Mrs Smithson," she had then said doubtfully. Of course, having just given her full liberty, I ought not to have qualified it, even by a look; but I confess my face fell. It was only for an instant, and I hoped my darling hadn't noticed it. "Have Mrs Smithson if you like," I said a little shortly, I am afraid.