"A visiphone-call for His Valor, the Mavrad of Nerros."

Vall went on nibbling ham and wine sauce; the servant repeated the
announcement a trifle more loudly.

[Illustration:]

"Vall, you're being paged!" Thalvan Dras told him, with a touch of
impatience.

Verkan Vall looked blank for an instant, then grinned. It had been so
long since he had even bothered to think about that antiquated title
of nobility--

"Vall's probably forgotten that he has a title," a girl across the
table, wearing an almost transparent gown and nothing else, laughed.

"That's something the Mavrad of Mnirna and Thalvabar never forgets,"
Jandar Jard drawled, with what, in a woman, would have been
cattishness.

Thalvan Dras gave him a hastily repressed look of venomous anger, then
said something, more to Verkan Vall than to Jandar Jard, about titles
of nobility being the marks of social position and responsibility
which their bearers should never forget. That jab, Vall thought,
following the servant out of the room, had been a mistake on Jard's
part. A music-drama, for which he had designed the settings, was due
to open here in Dhergabar in another ten days. Thalvan Dras would
cherish spite, and a word from the Mavrad of Mnirna and Thalvabar