“Not quite, but very nearly,” she said. “I am a gas. Give me a name!”
“I will call you Mrs. Sulphuretta Hydrogen. How does that suit you?”
“Is it a noxious gas?” she said, “for, honestly, I never am spiteful! I only speak of things as I find them, and one must send up bright copy, or one wouldn’t be taken on. I tell the truth——”
“Nothing extenuate, everything set down in malice!” said he. “The devil and The Bittern are much obliged to you. It is the honest truth that makes his work so easy for him. We are of a trade in more senses than one. Now tell me, can’t we exchange celebrities? I’ll give you my names, and you shall give me yours. I suppose all the world is here to-night?”
“All the world—and somebody else’s wife!” she said quickly, and the devil rubbed his hands. “But that is the rub—we can’t know who they all are till twelve o’clock, and my idea is that a good many of them will decamp before they are forced to reveal themselves. Least seen, soonest mended.”
“Then we shall have to invent them!” he said. “The very form of invitation must lead to a good deal of promiscuity. Can you tell me which is Lady Scilly? She at least is sure to be here.”
“Naturally! Wasn’t it she who discovered George Vero-Taylor and made him the fashion, you know?”
“Do you suppose he was particularly obliged to her for digging his family out as well?”
“You naughty man! But it was a most extraordinary thing, wasn’t it? Delightful, and not too scandalous to use. For the man is really quite harmless, only a frantic poseur and——”
“Ah, yes, and posed in London Society for ten years as an unmarried man! Suppose some nice girl had gone and fallen in love with him?”