“Well,” Catherine continued, “that is Mr. Braithwaiter the playwright, a little to the left—the man, with the smooth grey hair and eyeglass. Mrs. Hamilton Beardsmore you know, of course; her husband is commanding his regiment in Egypt.”
“The lady on my left?”
“Lady Grayson. She comes up from the country once a month to buy food. You needn’t mind her. She is stone deaf and prefers dining to talking.”
“I am relieved,” the Baron confessed, with a little sigh. “I addressed her as we sat down, and she made no reply. I began to wonder if I had offended.”
“The man next me,” she went on, “is Mr. Millson Gray. He is an American millionaire, over here to study our Y.M.C.A. methods. He can talk of nothing else in the world but Y.M.C.A. huts and American investments, and he is very hungry.”
“The conditions,” the Baron observed, “seem favourable for a tete-a-tete.”
Catherine smiled up into his imperturbable face. The wine had brought a faint colour to her cheeks, and the young man sighed regretfully at the idea of her prospective engagement. He had always been one of Catherine’s most pronounced admirers.
“But what are we to talk about?” she asked. “On the really interesting subjects your lips are always closed. You are a marvel of discretion, you know, Baron—even to me.”
“That is perhaps because you hide your real personality under so many aliases.”
“I must think that over,” she murmured.