"The Bishop?"
"Certainly not, after your disposal of me."
"Well, then, the poet? I am sure he is a poet because his tie is uneven and his hair is so long. Why do literary men wear their hair long, and literary women wear it short. I should like the poet."
"You shall not have him," said Hugh, with decision. "I am hesitating between the bald young man with the fat hand and the immense ring and the old professor who is drawing plans on the table-cloth."
"The apostle told me with bated breath that the young man with the ring is Mr. Harvey, the author of Unashamed."
Hugh looked at his plate to conceal his disgust.
There was a pause in the buzz of conversation, and into it fell straightway the voice of the apostle like a brick through a skylight.
"The need of the present age is the realization of our brotherhood with sin and suffering and poverty. West London in satin and diamonds does not hear her sister East London in rags calling to her to deliver her. The voice of East London has been drowned in the dance-music of the West End."
Sybell gazed with awed admiration at the apostle.
"What a beautiful thought," she said.