He touched her fingers for a moment with his, as if to seal their compact; then he turned once more to the lady upon his left.
Seyre House was one of the few mansions in London which boasted a banqueting-hall as well as a picture-gallery. Although the long table was laid for forty guests, it still seemed, with its shaded lights and its profusion of flowers, like an oasis of color in the middle of the huge, somberly lighted apartment. The penny illustrated papers, whose contributors know more of the doings of London society than anybody else, always hinted in mysterious terms at the saturnalian character of the prince's supper parties. John, who had heard a few whispers beforehand, and whose interest in his surroundings was keen and intense, wondered whether this company of beautiful women and elegant men were indeed a modern revival of those wonderful creations of Boccaccio, to whom they had so often been likened.
Some of the faces of the guests were well known to him through their published photographs; to others he had been presented by the prince upon their arrival. He was seated between a young American star of musical comedy and a lady who had only recently dropped from the social firmament through the medium of the divorce-court, to return to the theater of her earlier fame. Both showed every desire to converse with him between the intervals of eating and drinking, but were constantly brought to a pause by John's lack of knowledge of current topics. After her third glass of champagne, the lady who had recently been a countess announced her intention of taking him under her wing.
"Some one must tell you all about things," she insisted. "What you need is a guide and a chaperon. Won't I do?"
"Perfectly," he agreed.
"Fair play!" protested the young lady on his left, whose name was Rosie Sharon. "I spoke to him first!"
"Jolly bad luck!" Lord Amerton drawled from the other side of the table. "Neither of you have an earthly. He's booked. Saw him out with her the other evening."
"I sha'n't eat any more supper," Rosie Sharon pouted, pushing away her plate.
"You ought to have told us about her at once," the lady who had been a countess declared severely.
John preserved his equanimity.