of Union Jacks and Rising Suns were grouped in corners and festooned
above windows and doorways.

Lady Everington was bent upon giving an international importance to
her protégée's marriage. Her original plan had been to invite the
whole Japanese community in London, and so to promote the popularity
of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance by making the most of this opportunity
for social fraternising. But where was the Japanese community in
London? Nobody knew. Perhaps there was none. There was the Embassy, of
course, which arrived smiling, fluent, and almost too well-mannered.
But Lady Everington had been unable to push very far her programme for
international amenities. There were strange little yellow men from
the City, who had charge of ships and banking interests; there were
strange little yellow men from beyond the West End, who studied the
Fine Arts, and lived, it appeared, on nothing. But the hostess could
find no ladies at all, except Countess Saito and the Embassy dames.

Monsieur and Madame Murata from Paris, the bride's guardians, were
also present. But the Orient was submerged beneath the flood of our
rank and fashion, which, as one lady put it, had to take care how it
stepped for fear of crushing the little creatures.

"Why _did_ you let him do it?" said Mrs. Markham to her sister.

"It was a mistake, my dear," whispered Lady Everington, "I meant her
for somebody quite different."

"And you're sorry now?"

"No, I have no time to be sorry--ever," replied that eternally