He thought and believed: 

“This is the finest woman I ever saw!” He clearly perceived the inferiority of other women, whom, nevertheless, he admired and liked, such as the Countess of Chell and Lady Woldo.

It was not her brains, nor her beauty, nor her stylishness that affected him.  No!  It was something mysterious and dizzying that resided in every particle of her individuality.

He thought: 

“I’ve often and often wanted to see her again.  And now I’m having tea with her!” And he was happy.

“Have you got that list, Mr. Harrier?” she asked, in her low and thrilling voice.  So saying, she raised her eyebrows in expectation—­a delicious effect, especially behind her half-raised white veil.

Mr. Marrier produced a document.

“But that’s my list!” said Edward Henry.

“Your list?”

“I’d better tell you.”  Mr. Marrier essayed a rapid explanation.  “Mr. Machin wanted a list of the raight sort of people to ask to the corner-stone-laying of his theatah.  So I used this as a basis.”

Elsie April smiled again: 

“Very good!” she approved.

“What is your list, Marrier?” asked Edward Henry.

It was Elsie who replied: 

“People to be invited to the dramatic soiree of the Azure Society.  We give six a year.  No title is announced.  Nobody except a committee of three knows even the name of the author of the play that is to be performed.  Everything is kept a secret.  Even the author doesn’t know that his play has been chosen.  Don’t you think it’s a delightful idea?...  An offspring of the New Thought!”

He agreed that it was a delightful idea.

“Shall I be invited?” he asked.

She answered gravely, “I don’t know.”

“Are you going to play in it?”

She paused....  “Yes.”

“Then you must let me come.  Talking of plays—­”

He stopped.  He was on the edge of facetiously relating the episode of “The Orient Pearl” at Sir John Pilgrim’s.  But he withdrew in time.  Suppose that “The Orient Pearl” was the piece to be performed by the Azure Society!  It might well be!  It was (in his opinion) just the sort of play that that sort of society would choose!  Nevertheless he was as anxious as ever to see Elsie April act.  He really thought that she could and would transfigure any play.  Even his profound scorn of New Thought (a subject of which he was entirely ignorant) began to be modified—­and by nothing but the enchantment of the tone in which Elsie April murmured the words, “Azure Society!”

“How soon is the performance?” he demanded.

“Wednesday week,” said she.

“That’s the very day of my corner-stone-laying,” he said.  “However, it doesn’t matter.  My little affair will be in the afternoon.”

“But it can’t be,” said she, solemnly.  “It would interfere with us, and we should interfere with it.  Our Annual Conference takes place in the afternoon.  All London will be there.”