Three days later Simon's mail-box yielded a scented mauve envelope, and he knew before he opened it that it was the one he had been waiting for.
118, Berkeley Square, Mayfair, W.I. My dear Mr. Templar, I'm sure you must have thought me rather abrupt after our accident in Hyde Park on Tuesday, but these little upsets seem so much worse at the time than they really are. Do try and forgive my rudeness. I am having a little party here on Tuesday next. Lord and Lady Palfrey are coming, and the Hon. Celia Mallard, and lots of other people whom I expect you'll know. I'd take it as a great favour if you could manage to look in, any time after 9.30, just to let me know you weren't offended. I do hope you got to Hurlingham all right. Yours sincerely, Gertrude Dempster-Craven.
"Who said my technique had ever failed me?" Simon demanded of Peter Quentin at lunchtime that day.
"I didn't," said Peter, "as I've told you all along. Thank God you won't be going to prison on Thursday, anyway — if it's only a little party she's invited you to, I don't suppose you'll even see the Star of Mandalay."
Simon grinned.
"Little party be blowed," he said. "Gertrude has never thrown a little party in her life. When she talks about a 'little' party she means there'll only be two orchestras and not more than a hundred couples. And if she doesn't put on the Star of Mandalay for Lady Palfrey's benefit I am a bob-tailed ptarmigan and my name is Alphonse."
Nevertheless, when he suggested that Peter Quentin should come with him there was not much argument.
"How can you get me in?" Peter demurred. "I wasn't invited, and I don't known any princes."
"You've got an uncle who's a lord or something, haven't you?"
"I've got an uncle who's the Bishop of Kenya; but what does Mrs. Dempster-Craven care about South African bishops?"