"You have bribed James," she declared. "I hope it cost you a great deal of money. I will not believe that I asked you. However, since you are here, go and tell Wilhelmina some of your stories. I hate pale cheeks, and Wilhelmina blushes easily. No use looking at the clock, Duke. Dinner will be at least half an hour late, I'm sure. These foreign _chefs_ have no idea of punctuality. What's that? Dinner served! Two minutes before time. Well, we're all here, aren't we? I knew it would be either too early or too late. Duke, you will have to take me in. By the time we get there the soup will probably be cold. You'd better pray that we're starting with caviare and oysters! Such a slow crowd, aren't they--and such chatterboxes! I wish they'd move on a little faster and talk a little less. No! Only thirty. Nice sociable number, I call it, for a round table. I asked Victor Macheson, the man who's so rude to us all every Thursday afternoon for a guinea a time--I don't know why we pay it to be abused,--but he wouldn't come. I met him before he developed, and I don't think he liked me." "You got my telegram?" Deyes asked, as he unfolded his napkin. Wilhelmina nodded. "Yes!" she answered. "It was very good of you to warn me. I have had--a letter already. The campaign has begun." Deyes nodded. "Chosen your weapons yet?" he asked. "I haven't much choice, have I?" she answered, a little bitterly. "I fight, of course." Deyes was carefully scanning the menu through his horn-rimmed eyeglass. "Becassine à la Broche," he murmured. "I must remember that." Then he turned in his chair and looked at Wilhelmina. "You are worrying," he declared abruptly. She shrugged her shoulders, alabaster white, rising from the unrelieved black of her velvet gown. "My maid's fault," she added. "I ought to have worn white. Of course I'm worrying. I don't care about carrying the signs of it about with me though. I think I shall have to adopt Peggy's advice, and go to the rouge-pot." "Perhaps," he said deliberately, "it will not be necessary." She looked up at him quickly. His words sounded encouraging. "What do you mean?" "I mean that a way may be found to induce a certain gentleman to return to his native country and stay there," Deyes said smoothly. "After dinner we are going to have some talk. Please oblige me now by abandoning the discussion and eating something. Ah! that champagne will do you good." Her neighbour on the other side addressed her, and Wilhelmina was conscious of a sudden lightening of the load upon her heart. Like every one else, she had confidence in this tall, self-contained man whose life was somewhat of a mystery even to his friends, and who had about him that suggestion of power which reticence nearly always brings. He was going to help her. She pushed all those miserable thoughts away from her. She became herself again.