“No good, Hilary,” Guy was murmuring. “He won’t, because it’s what those fellows call News. And if you try you will only upset young Venice and make her perhaps feel she’s in the other camp, rather the wrong camp for her, she might think, and just as she’s marrying Naps. She’s a good girl, loyal as anything to her father--and he’s a good fellow enough, but he’s got a queer complaint called Consistency. It’s something you make money out of, I think. I know him very well, as I’ve blackballed him from three clubs. My God, ever seen the man’s jaw?” “She’s lovely, I thought,” Iris said. “Good girl, Venice....” “Hell ...” said Iris suddenly, breathlessly. “What?” Hilary jumped. “Only ... hell is raving with millionaires with jaws like Mr. Pollen’s. I’ve dreamt, I know. People who snap ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ very brusquely and then stick to it, no matter what it is. This century likes them like that. Come along, my friend, come along!” And in a trice Iris and I were walking up the long passage which connects the Loyalty Club to the pavement of Pall Mall. On one side it is hung (but this is two years ago) with glass cases laden with fine cut jades and ambers, while small blue and green figures of animal men, human animals, and bestial gods will delight the eyes of Egyptologists: on the other the faces of beautiful women and children will testify to the photographic art of Sebastian Roeskin of Dover Street. Iris walked swiftly, heroically, her eyes intent before her, impersonal, utterly unself-conscious. The glaring lights in the passage lit her swiftly-moving green-and-silver shoes, or were they sandals with high heels? and so intent were the flippant silver-flashing ankles, briskly striding on, as though chiming the never-to-be-known marching song of a lady who must always meet men on their own ground. She said: “You’ll be wondering how I came to dine with a man like Victor Duck. Well, I’ve been wondering myself. Poor Victor Duck. He has taken to caddishness like a drug, and he goes on increasing the doses. It’s almost fascinating to watch, just to see what inevitable things he will say next. And he said and did them all, every one, even to ‘Dear little girl’ and to ordering a private room. But I said I never dined in private rooms on Fridays.” There was a group of tall young men at the entrance, maybe waiting for their women from the Cloak-Room, maybe waiting for sirens to come to them from the night, maybe waiting for taxicabs, maybe only waiting for the next minute, as young men will. Admirably formal they looked, admirably toned to the dress-coats of Davies, the trousers of Anderson and Sheppard, the hats of Lock, the waistcoats of Hawes and Curtis, the ties of Budd. Handkerchiefs by Edouard and Butler. The glory to God. They looked furtively at Iris in the way that decent men will at a woman who is said to have had lovers, like cows at a bull. One of them said gloomily: “Might go to the Albert Hall Ball.”