‘Your first visit to London?’ asked Madge Newgate. ‘Yes: I’ve been here but a week, and have done nothing but hunt round for a house and go to the opera.’ Instantly Lady Newgate remembered the solitary and dazzling figure in the box. She, too, had wondered who the woman in orange and diamonds was. Mrs. Whitehand’s face had made no impression whatever on her. ‘Ah, then I am sure I saw you there,’ she said. ‘We were all wondering who you were. You must allow me to put some of my friends out of their suspense by letting them know.’ Mrs. Whitehand laughed. ‘I should be very pleased for your friends not to strain themselves,’ she remarked. ‘And I’m in suspense too, as to who your friends are. I don’t know a soul in London.’ This was rather a relief to Madge Newgate. Sometimes a perfectly impossible tail was attached to these strange Americans, and you had to encounter the riff-raff of the Western world _en masse_. She laid her hand on the other’s knee. ‘My dear, you must get some friends at once,’ she said. ‘You might dine with us to-night, will you? I have two or three people coming.’ This was quite sufficient. Mrs. Whitehand spoke shortly and to the point. ‘I want to be run,’ she said. Madge Newgate was a perfectly honest woman, and now that all ambiguity had been cleared away, she explained what she could do and what she would expect to receive. She could give Mrs. Whitehand the opportunity of meeting practically any one she wished, and she could repeat and again repeat that opportunity. She could bring people to Mrs. Whitehand’s house, and within limits get them to invite her to theirs. But more than that, she frankly admitted she could not do. ‘I can’t make them your friends,’ she said. ‘I can only make them your acquaintances. The other depends on you. You must show yourself useful or charming or striking in some way, if you want more than just to go to balls and dinner-parties. Luckily in London we are very hungry, so that you can always feed people, and very poor, so that you can always tip people, and very dull, so that you can always amuse people.’ ‘I see: I quite see that,’ said Mrs. Whitehand. Madge felt that she understood: that it was worth while explaining. ‘I’m sure you will forgive my plain speaking,’ she said, ‘but it is never any use being vague. And there’s a lot of luck about it. Sometimes a very stupid woman “arrives” and a very clever agreeable one doesn’t, and the Lord knows why. I should be quite American do you know, if I were you; Americans are taking well just now. About--well, why should I beat about the bush?--about what I am to receive for my trouble. I imagine you don’t want my house in the least for the three months after July, and I am willing to take a good deal of trouble for your renting it then. And when some more rent is due, I think I had better tell you, hadn’t I? I am not greedy, I am only very poor.’