number of years, I suppose. I didn't believe them, of course--one makes
it a practice to believe nothing of the sort. But I recognised that the
evening was momentous to somebody--that Mr. Gurnard and the Duc de
Mersch and Churchill were to discuss something and that I was remotely
interested because the _Hour_ employed me.

Churchill continued to pace up and down.

"Gurnard dines here to-night," his aunt said.

"Oh, I see." His hands played with some coins in his trouser-pockets. "I
see," he said again, "they've ..."

The occasion impressed me. I remember very well the manner of both
nephew and aunt. They seemed to be suddenly called to come to a decision
that was no easy one, that they had wished to relegate to an indefinite
future.

She left Churchill pacing nervously up and down.

"I could go on with something else, if you like," I said.

"But I don't like," he said, energetically; "I'd much rather not see
the man. You know the sort of person he is."

"Why, no," I answered, "I never studied the Almanac de Gotha."

"Oh, I forgot," he said. He seemed vexed with himself.

Churchill's dinners were frequently rather trying to me. Personages of