While Mame returned doubtful thanks for a favour she did not expect to receive, the girl and her escort were already under way. With mingled feelings Mame watched them pass along the line of tables. She saw the girl blow a kiss to the old woman with the Roman nose, who in return offered a most truculent scowl. But this was effaced by the homage of the maître d’hôtel, who bestowed upon the girl an exaggerated bow. Moreover, as she made a smiling progress down the long room, many eyes seemed to follow her; or, as Mame was inclined to think, the eyes of the feminine section of the tea-drinking public were drawn by the escort Bill.
Indeed, as a pair they were distinctly “it” as they went along to the door. The girl stopped at several tables just to pass the time of day, while Bill stood by like a big and amiable Newfoundland dog.
Mame sighed again. Yes, some skirts had luck! Up till that moment she had not realised the possibilities in writing for the newspapers. She would get no card, of course, for Clanborough House. But she was already resigned to that. Birds of that sort were much too busy paddling their private canoes. And why not? You simply got nowhere if you didn’t.
When the girl finally went out through the doors at the end of the room Mame was sure that she had seen and heard the last of her. That was the way of the world as already she had come to understand it. The big cities were chock-full of interesting folks, but unless you were just-so it was not worth while to take you up.
To be worth while, that was the open sesame to New York and London. Paula Ling had grasped that truth. That was why she was a mass of paint and powder and patchouli; that was why she screwed herself like a manikin, into tight smart clothes. But this skirt left Paula standing. The Paulas of life, for all their brains and their will-power, could not live five minutes with this sort of girl, who had every new trick, and who, like Cinquevalli the famous conjurer, was so expert she could almost do them shut-eye.
So much was Mame occupied with these thoughts that it was not until she had paid her bill and was out once more upon the cold pavement of Pall Mall that she gave herself a mental shake. She was a fool. Had she kept her wits about her she would at least have asked the waiter the name of this queen among four-flushers.
XIII
MAME had quite made up her mind that she would not receive an invitation to the wedding reception at Clanborough House. Why should she? That the girl would prove as good as her word was not on the cards. Such a promise was no more than a slick Londoner’s way of showing how much she was in it, without really being quite so much in it as she showed.
After all, however, it is a funny world. And this was Mame’s reflection, when rather late the following afternoon, the little maid, whose name was Janet, handed her a large, square, important-looking envelope that had just come by post. At the sight of the coronet on the back and the general air of quality Mame’s heart gave a jump.
The unexpected had happened. Her Grace the Duchess of Clanborough requested the honour—requested the honour, mark you!—of the company of Miss Amethyst Du Rance at the marriage of the Marquis of Belfield with her niece Miss Van Alsten at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, at three o’clock on Thursday, April 6, and afterwards at Clanborough House, Mayfair.