Imagine, said Dwight-Rankin, with what consternation Lady Surplice suddenly discovered that the company was thirteen in number! She was livid. She said: “It is the fault of that Dwight-Rankin man. I had forgotten that he had put me off at the last moment. That low, detestable man! How rude people with two names can be! But what shall we do? We cannot dine thirteen, and on Christmas Eve! Your Highness, what would you advise? I am quite unable, my dear Highness, to sit down thirteen at meat. I detest meat, but you know what I mean. It would quite destroy my luck.”
“His Highness,” said Guy Godolphin Greville Hawke, 21st Viscount de Travest, “might very possibly prefer to have his luck completely destroyed; for the present luck of Royalty in Europe is, if I may say so, sickening.”
Lord Marketharborough had been for some time examining the busts of notable men by Mestrovic and Epstein, and had therefore not heard what had gone before; but that did not deter him from asking one of those pertinent questions which came naturally to his fearless mind. “Since,” said the Lord Chancellor, “we are thirteen, are we a woman too many or a man? Let us first get that quite clear.”
“There is always a woman too many,” snapped Lady Surplice, whereupon Dame Warp strode forward and said bitterly between her teeth: “I see I am not wanted. Let it never be said that a decent woman—I said a decent woman—ever stood in the way of her friends’ enjoyment. I will go.” She was, however, soothed by Monsieur des Beaux-Aces, whilst the other gentlemen very properly laughed the superstition to scorn. In particular Mr. Warp, who was eminent in private life for his researches into the defunct branch of political thought once known as Liberalism, but was better known in public as the husband of Dame Warp, distinguished himself by the elegant scholarship of his scepticism.
Nor, said Dwight-Rankin, were the ladies—to wit, Shelmerdene, the Lady Fay Paradise, Lady Pynte, Miss Pamela Star and the Lady Amelia Peep, who was a young lady of the highest fashion with her hair parted at the side, a talent for writing poetry, and a governing-classes voice—nor were they behindhand with their ridicule of so childish a fancy as Lady Surplice’s, that they could be susceptible of the least harm through sitting thirteen at table.
“Dinner,” said the doyen of the butlers from the door, “is served, my lady.”
“Talbot!” cried Lady Surplice. “How dared you not warn me that we were thirteen for dinner? Why do you not answer me? Is this a time for silence?”
“Decidedly,” said the Lord Chancellor. “For I am hungry.”
“My lady,” said the wretched Talbot, “I am sorry. It quite escaped my notice. I will send in my resignation in the morning.”
Says my lady with a high look: “Talbot, you will expiate your sin now. You will at once leave the house. You will walk round St. James’s Square. And you will invite the first person you meet in to dine with me. Go.”