"Come, dear, we must make haste. It's awfully late, and old Mr. Keppel will never forgive us if the soup comes up cold."
So young Cecil Ormrod made his adieux and departed, promising to call on us again.
"Cecil is an awfully nice boy," Ulrica remarked. "I met him at a country house-party two years ago. His father is a stockbroker and his sisters are particularly jolly. We must be nice to him."
"You've already begun," I remarked, rather spitefully perhaps. But she only smiled.
Then we descended by the lift and joined Gerald, whom we found walking up and down impatiently in the hall.
Quite a host of smart people dined at the Villa Fabron that evening, including several pretty English girls. A millionaire never lacks friends. Old Benjamin Keppel was something of a recluse. It was not often that he sent out so many invitations, but when he gave a dinner he spared no expense, and the one in honour of Carnival was truly a gastronomic marvel. The table was decorated with mauve and old gold, the Carnival colours; and the room, which was draped with satin of the same shades, presented a mass of blended hues particularly striking.
The old millionaire, seated at the head of his table, in his breezy, open-hearted manner made everyone happy at once.
Both Ulrica and I wore new frocks, which we considered were the latest triumphs of our Nice couturière—they certainly ought to have been, if they were not, for their cost was ruinous—and there were also quite a number of bright dresses and good-looking men. The day is gone, I am glad to say, when a mode, because it is decreed to be the fashion, is blindly adopted. Women realise at last that to achieve the happiest results they must make Fashion subservient to their requirements, instead of foolishly following in her wake, as for years they have been wont to do.
As I sat there amid the gay chatter of the table, I looked at the lean, grey-bearded man at its head, and fell into reflection. How strange it was that this man, worth millions, actually toiled in secret each day at his lathe to earn a few shillings a week from an English firm as pocket-money! All his gay friends who sat around his table were ignorant of that fact. He only revealed it to those in whom he placed trust—and I was one of the latter.
After dinner we all went forth into the gardens, which were illuminated everywhere with coloured lights and lanterns, and wandered beneath the orange trees, joking and chattering.