"My dearest big boy!" she said. "Darling little Mum!" said Peter. XIV Kenyon, turned out as excellently as usual, led the way into the dining-room at Sherry's. It was a quarter to eight. Every other table was occupied. The large room was too warm and was filled with the conglomerate aromas of food. Peter sat on the right of his host and Graham on the left. Both men were quiet and distrait,--Peter because he was anxious, Graham for the reason that he had not been able to leave behind him the carking worries that now fell daily to his lot. Kenyon, on the contrary, was in his best form, and even a little excited. Apart from the fact that he rather liked having something to do that would prove his knowledge of life and the accuracy of his powers of psychology, he was looking forward to be amused with what went on in the studio-apartment of the Papowsky. "By Jove!" he said, looking around and arranging his tie over the points of his collar with expert fingers,--a thing which Graham immediately proceeded to do also,--"this place has a quite distinct atmosphere. Don't you think so, Peter?" "Has it?" "One would, I see, choose it for a trying and dull-bright dinner with a prospective mother-in-law or with some dear thing, safely married, with whom one had once rashly imagined one's self to be in love. Waiter, the wine list!" Graham laughed. Kenyon, scoring his first point, continued airily. "For my part, I shall make a point of dining here one night with an alluring young thing fresh from the romantic quietude of a Convent School. I feel that these discreet lights and reserved colours will give a certain amount of weight and even solemnity to my careful flattery--A large bottle of Perrier Jouet '02, and be sparing with the ice. Peter, I think you'll find that this caviare gives many points to the tired stuff that used to be palmed off on us at Buol's and other undergraduate places of puerile riotousness." The dinner, which Kenyon had ordered with becoming care, would have satisfied the epicureanism of a Russian aristocrat. During all its courses the host kept up a running fire of anecdote which quickly made the table a merry one. He also saw to it that Graham's glass was never empty. They sat laughing, smoking and drinking Crême Yvette until they were the last people in the room except for an old bloated man and a very young Hebrew girl. The band, which had mixed ragtime indiscriminately with Italian opera and Austrian waltzes, and played them all equally well, went off to acquire the second wind and the relaxed muscles necessary for a later performance, and the waiters had long since rearranged the table for supper before Kenyon suggested adjourning to a club for a game of billiards which would amuse them until it was time to begin the business of the evening. So they walked round to the Harvard Club, and here Peter--the only one of the party who was completely his own master--became host.