Three or four people were dotted about the room, but no one had ventured on the cushions. There was one young lady whose hair was done in the early Victorian style, parted in the middle, with bunches of curls each side. As far as her throat she appeared to be strictly a Victorian—very English, about 1850—but from that point she suddenly became Oriental, and for the rest was dressed principally in what looked like beaded curtains.
Leaning on the mantelpiece and smoking a cigarette with great ease of manner was a striking and agreeable-looking young man, about eight and twenty, whom Miss Belvoir introduced as Mr. Bevan Fairfield. He was fair and good-looking, very dandified in dress, and with a rather humorously turned-up nose and an excessively fluent way of speaking.
“I was just scolding Miss Belvoir,” he said, “when you came in. She’s been playing me the trick she’s always playing. She gets me here under the pretext that some celebrity’s coming and then they don’t turn up. Signor Semolini, the Futurist, I was asked to meet. And then she gets a telegram—or says she does—that he can’t come. Very odd, very curious, they never can come—at any rate when I’m here. Some people would rather say, ‘Fancy, I was asked to Miss Belvoir’s the other day to meet Semolini, only he didn’t turn up,’ than not say anything at all. Some people think it’s a distinction not to have met Semolini at Miss Belvoir’s.”
“It’s quite a satisfactory distinction,” remarked Bertha. “Semolini has been to see us once, but he really isn’t very interesting.”
“Ah, but still you’re able to say that. I sha’n’t be able to say, ‘I met Semolini the other day, and, do you know, he’s such a disappointment.’”
“Well, I couldn’t help it, Bevan,” murmured Miss Belvoir, smiling.
“No, I know you couldn’t help it. Of course you couldn’t help it. That’s just it—you never expected the man. I went to lunch with another liar last week—I beg your pardon, Miss Belvoir—who asked me to meet Dusé. She was so sorry she couldn’t come at the last minute. She sent a telegram. Well, all I ask is, let me see the telegram.”
“But you couldn’t; he ’phoned,” objected Miss Belvoir.
“So you say,” returned the young man, as he passed a cup of tea to Bertha.
“Will you have China tea and lemon and be smart, or India tea and milk and sugar and enjoy it? I don’t mind owning that I like stewed tea—I like a nice comfortable washer-woman’s cup of tea myself. Well, I suppose we’re all going to the Indian ball at the Albert Hall. What are you all going as? I suppose Miss Belvoir’s going as a nautch-girl, or a naughty girl or something.”