In the tidied-up sitting-room Mrs. Heth entertained her distinguished son-to-be, during the little delay.  She always enjoyed a good talk with Hugo.  He was her pledge of a well-spent life, her Order of Merit, her V.C. and Star and Garter, rolled together in a single godlike figure.  She beamed upon him, tugging at white gloves half a size too small.  Canning tapped a well-shod foot with his walking-stick, and wished for his love.

The wish grew by what it fed on, and the banquet ran long.  Half an hour passed before the door from Mrs. Heth’s bedroom opened and Carlisle appeared.  However, she looked worth waiting for.  She shimmered a moment from the threshold, and the two in the sitting-room thought together that they had never seen her so radiantly lovely.

“I made her!” thought Mrs. Heth.

“Mine!” thought Canning.

And Cally thought, her eyes upon her lover:  “Me afraid!...”

“My dear Cally!  Really, I can say nothing for you but better late than never,” said mamma.

“Salutations!” said Hugo, rising.  “And by Jove!  What a perfectly stunning dress!”

“Oh, do you like it?” said Carlisle, trailing forward, her eyes shining.  “Then you won’t scold, will you, if my watch was a trifle slow!  And I should have been ready hours ago, even at that, but for Flora’s over-staying at her uncle’s.  Tell Mr. Canning, Flora, wasn’t it all your fault?”

And Flora, having followed her young mistress in with the carriage-cloak, giggled into her hand as at a royal jest and said yas’m, it certny was....

In holiday vein the trio departed from the suite, dropped sixteen stories in the lift, and presently came by taxicab to the Cafe des Ambassadeurs, where had taken place the memorable dinner for two, just two months ago to a night....

Here all was glittering and gay.  The Ambassadeurs, pending the arrival of something newer, was on the pinnacle of expensive popularity.  At this hour everything was in fullest swing, and the impressive looking major-domo was shaking his head without hope to arriving applicants who had not ordered a table beforehand, as Hugo had done by messenger.

The Heth ladies turned into the cloak-room to remove their wraps.  The air of vivacity pervading the place, or possibly it was her daughter’s staccato liveliness, entered the blood of Mrs. Heth:  she was imperious with the ladies’ maid who assisted with the unwrapping.  Carlisle, strolling about as she unbuttoned her gloves, came to the elaborate screen which sheltered the doorway and glanced out.  Directly opposite, over the brilliant corridor, her gaze fell upon the glass and yellow-wood of a long-distance telephone booth.

Then she caught sight of Hugo, and smiled at him, and at the same moment mamma’s voice said at her elbow: 

“There’s Hugo, waiting....  Are you ready?”

“And waiting, too,” said Carlisle.