quite unlike his normal behavior in the circles of his class.




II


Ashe took his seat, dined, and saw the Prime Minister. These things took
time, and it was not till past eleven that he presented himself in the
hall of Madame d'Estrées' house in St. James's Place. Most of her guests
were already gathered, but he mounted the stairs together with an old
friend and an old acquaintance, Philip Darrell, one of the ablest
writers of the moment, and Louis Harman, artist and man of fashion, the
friend of duchesses and painter of portraits, a person much in request
in many worlds.

"What a _cachet_ they have, these houses!" said Harman, looking round
him. "St. James's Place is the top!"

"Where else would you expect to find Madame d'Estrées?" asked Darrell,
smiling.

"Yes--what taste she has! However, it was I really who advised her to
take the house."

"Naturally," said Darrell.

Harman threw a dubious look at him, then stopped a moment, and with a
complacent proprietary air straightened an engraving on the staircase