Her exit with Lady Louisa was confused with that of other stragglers. The Admiral, Etta and Tommy remained. They all went down to Quixtus’s study, the little back room of the adventure of the drunken housekeeper now cheery with decanters and syphons and cigarettes, and chatted intimately till the Admiral reminded Etta that the horses—such fat horses, murmured Etta—had been standing for nearly an hour. Tommy accompanied father and daughter to the carriage. Quixtus and Clementina were left alone. “Can I tell Sheila to-morrow that you’re coming down to Moleham?” “I think you can,” said Quixtus. “I think you can quite safely.” “I’m sorry Mrs. Fontaine wasn’t able to join us.” “Now why?” he asked, vaguely conscious of outstretched claw and flying fur. “Because she has such brilliant social gifts,” replied Clementina. There was a span of silence. Clementina inhaled a puff of the Turkish cigarette she had lit and then threw it into the grate. “For God’s sake, my dear man, look in that drawer and give me some tobacco I can smoke. I smuggled it in yesterday.” Quixtus gave her the yellow package and papers and she rolled a cigarette of Maryland and smoked contentedly. Tommy came in. “Will you and these infants lunch with me to-morrow at the Carlton?” “With pleasure,” said Quixtus. “Do you know,” she said, “I’ve never been inside the place? It will be quite an adventure.” A few moments later Tommy and herself were speeding westward in a taxi-cab. The boy spoke little. All his darling conceptions of Clementina had been upheaved, dynamited, tossed into the air and lay around him in amorphous fragments. Nor was she conversationally inclined. Tommy now was a tiny little speck in her horizon. Yet when the motor drew up at her house in Romney Place and he opened the gate for her, something significant happened. He put out his hand. “Good-night, Clementina.” She laughed. “Where are your manners, Tommy? Aren’t you going to kiss me?” He hesitated, just the fraction of a second, and then kissed her. She ran up to her room exultant; not because she had been kissed; far from it. But because he had hesitated. Between Clementina fishfag and Clementina princess was a mighty gulf. She knew it. She exulted. She went to bed, but could not sleep. She had a headache; such a headache; a glorious headache; a thunder and lightning of a headache! CHAPTER XXIV