"That," he said, "that man with the white beard is Henry Arthur James. He writes all those books that no one can understand--and those clever plays, you know, that every one goes to see." "Does he really? Fancy! Can you point me out the man who wrote, 'Oh the Little Crimson Pansies' and 'The Garden of Alice'? I love his work. It's so weird. F. J. Rivers, you know." "My dear Miss Winter, what a dreadful thing! I'm afraid you'll be very disappointed. As a matter of fact, I am F. J. Rivers myself. Isn't it a pity? I'm so sorry. And I'm afraid I am not weird. Do forgive me. I'd be weird in a minute if I could. You know that, I'm sure. Don't you?" "Fancy! Just fancy!" She blushed crimson. "I was being so natural. I had no idea I was talking to a clever person." "No wonder!" "You see, I'm interested in things. I particularly love the intellectual atmosphere of this house, and I read all the serious magazines and things, the _Bookman_ and the _Saturday Review_ and the _Sketch_; and so on." "Should you say the atmosphere was really so intellectual here?" said Rivers a little doubtfully. The Viennese Band was playing _Caresses_ in its most Viennese way; people were gaily coming up from supper or coquettishly going down, or sitting in corners _à deux_, dreamily. The heavy scent of red rosebuds hung over all. So becoming was the background at this particular moment that nearly every woman looked fair and every man brave.... "I'm afraid--I mean, I suppose--you take what they call an intelligent interest in the subjects of the day, Miss Winter?" "I should think so, indeed!" she answered. "Oh dear!" Rivers looked depressed as he tried to remember what he knew about Radium and Russia. "Somehow I don't feel frightened of _you_," she said. "Will you take me to have a cup of tea?" He escorted her downstairs, endeavouring to make up for any disappointment she might feel by pointing out with reckless lavishness Mr. Chamberlain, Beerbohm Tree, Arthur Balfour, Madame Melba, Filsen Young, George Alexander, and Winston Churchill, none of whom, by a curious coincidence, happened to be present. "Surely I may talk to you a moment," Woodville murmured to Sylvia. "Every one's happy eating, and you needn't bother. Just come out, one second--on the verandah through the little room. After all, I'm a friend of the family!" "Why, so you are!" She fluttered out with him through the French window of the little conversation room to a part of the garden that had been boarded and enclosed, forming with its striped awning and Japanese lanterns a kind of verandah. No one was in sight. "This is the first second to-night I haven't been utterly wretched," said Woodville firmly. "Oh, Frank! How kind of you to talk like that!" "How beautiful of you to look like that!--And this is the sort of thing I have to stand--utterly ignored--I suppose you know I worship you? Do you really belong to me, Sylvia?" "Oh, Frank! Why, I _love_ you!" "Do you really?"