"I expect we shall find Philbert from the Home Office--or is it the
Local Government Board?--and Sir Thomas Loot, the Treasury man. There
may be some other people of that sort, the people we call the Governing
Class. Wives also. And I rather fancy the Countess of Frensham is
coming, she's strong on the Irish Question, and Lady Venetia
Trumpington, who they say is a beauty--I've never seen her. It's Lady
Homartyn's way to expect me to come in--not that I'm an important item
at these week-end social feasts--but she likes to see me on the
table--to be nibbled at if any one wants to do so--like the olives and
the salted almonds. And she always asks me to lunch on Sunday and I
always refuse--because of the hockey. So you see I put in an appearance
on the Saturday afternoon...."

They had reached the big doorway.

It opened into a large cool hall adorned with the heads of hippopotami
and rhinoceroses and a stuffed lion, and furnished chiefly with a vast
table on which hats and sticks and newspapers were littered. A
manservant with a subdued, semi-confidential manner, conveyed to Mr.
Britling that her ladyship was on the terrace, and took the hats and
sticks that were handed to him and led the way through the house. They
emerged upon a broad terrace looking out under great cedar trees upon
flower beds and stone urns and tennis lawns and yew hedges that dipped
to give a view of distant hills. On the terrace were grouped perhaps a
dozen people for the most part holding teacups, they sat in deck chairs
and folding seats about a little table that bore the tea-things. Lady
Homartyn came forward to welcome the newcomers.

Mr. Direck was introduced as a travelling American gratified to see a