“Ah! do not mention London,” she begged, “or else I shall begin to think of Sodom and Gomorrah.  After all, why need one live for anything else except the present?”

“There is the Comtesse,” he reminded her disconsolately.

She sighed.

“How horrid of you!”

“Let us forget her, then,” he begged.  “We will go into the marquee there and have supper, and afterwards dance again.  We’ll steal to-night out of the calendar.  We’ll call it ours and play with it as we please.”

She shook her head.

“No,” she decided, “you have reminded me of our duty, and you are quite right.  You were brought here to talk to the Comtesse.  I do not know why, but she is in a curiously impenetrable frame of mind.  I tried hard to get her to talk to me, but it was useless; you must see what you can do.  Fortunately, she seems to be absolutely delighted to have met you again.  You have a dance with her, have you not?”

He drew out his programme reluctantly.

“The next one, too,” he sighed.

Anna rose quickly to her feet.

“How absurd of me to forget!  Take me inside, please, and go and look for her at once.”

“It’s all very well,” Norgate grumbled, “but the last time I saw her she was about three deep among the notabilities.  I really don’t feel that I ought to jostle dukes and ambassadors to claim a dance.”

“You must not be so foolish,” Anna insisted.  “The Comtesse cares nothing for dukes and ambassadors, but she is most ridiculously fond of good-looking young men.  Mind, you will do better with her if you speak entirely outside all of us.  She is a very peculiar woman.  If one could only read the secrets she has stored up in her brain!  Sometimes she is so lavish with them, and at other times, and with other people, it seems as though it would take an earthquake to force a sentence from her lips.  There she is, see, in that corner.  Never mind the people around her.  Go and do your duty.”

Norgate found it easier than he had expected.  She no sooner saw him coming than she rose to her feet and welcomed him.  She laid her fingers upon his arm, and they moved away towards the ballroom.

“I am afraid,” he apologised, “that I am rather an intruder.  You all seemed so interested in listening to the Duke.”

“On the contrary, I welcome you as a deliverer,” she declared.  “I have heard those stories so often, and worse than having heard them is the necessity always to smile.  The Duke is a dear good person, and he has been exceedingly kind to me during the whole of my stay, but oh, how one sometimes does weary oneself of this London of yours!  Yet I love it.  Do you know that you were almost the first person I asked for when I arrived here?  They told me that you were in Berlin.”

“I was,” he admitted.  “I am in the act of being transferred.”

“Fortunate person!” she murmured.  “You speak the language of all capitals, but I cannot fancy you in Berlin.”