“Anything, Mrs. Holt,” said Honora.

“If we are to leave a little after nine,” said that lady, balancing her glasses on her nose and glancing at the card, “we have not, I’m afraid, time for many courses.”

The head waiter greeted them at the door of the dining-room.  He, too, was a man of wisdom and experience.  He knew Mrs. Holt, and he knew Trixton Brent.  If gravity had not been a life-long habit with him, one might have suspected him of a desire to laugh.  As it was, he seemed palpably embarrassed,—­for Mr. Brent had evidently been conversing with him.

“Two, sir?” he asked.

“Three,” said Mrs. Holt, with dignity.

The head waiter planted them conspicuously in the centre of the room; one of the strangest parties, from the point of view of a connoisseur of New York, that ever sat down together.  Mrs. Holt with her curls, and her glasses laid flat on the bosom of her dove-coloured dress; Honora in a costume dedicated to the very latest of the sports, and Trixton Brent in English tweeds.  The dining-room was full.  But here and there amongst the diners, Honora observed, were elderly people who smiled discreetly as they glanced in their direction—­friends, perhaps, of Mrs. Holt.  And suddenly, in one corner, she perceived a table of six where the mirth was less restrained.

Fortunately for Mr. Brent, he had had a cocktail, or perhaps two, in Honora’s absence.  Sufficient time had elapsed since their administration for their proper soothing and exhilarating effects.  At the sound of the laughter in the corner he turned his head, a signal for renewed merriment from that quarter.  Whereupon he turned back again and faced his hostess once more with a heroism that compelled Honora’s admiration.  As a sportsman, he had no intention of shirking the bitterness of defeat.

“Mrs. Grainger and Mrs. Shorter,” he remarked, “appear to be enjoying themselves.”

Honora felt her face grow hot as the merriment at the corner table rose to a height it had not heretofore attained.  And she did not dare to look again.

Mrs. Holt was blissfully oblivious to her surroundings.  She was, as usual, extremely composed, and improved the interval, while drinking her soup, with a more or less undisguised observation of Mr. Brent; evidently regarding him somewhat in the manner that a suspicious householder would look upon a strange gentleman whom he accidentally found in his front hall.  Explanations were necessary.  That Mr. Brent’s appearance, on the whole, was in his favour did not serve to mitigate her suspicions.  Good-looking men were apt to be unscrupulous.

“Are you interested in working girls, Mr. Brent?” she inquired presently.

Honora, in spite of her discomfort, had an insane desire to giggle.  She did not dare to raise her eyes.

“I can’t say that I’ve had much experience with them, Mrs. Holt,” he replied, with a gravity little short of sublime.