"Do you know him, by the way?" she asked.

"Who?"

"Mr. Barbecue-Smith."

Denis knew of him vaguely. Barbecue-Smith was a name in the
Sunday papers. He wrote about the Conduct of Life. He might
even be the author of "What a Young Girl Ought to Know".

"No, not personally," he said.

"I've invited him for next week-end." She turned over the pages
of the book. "Here's the passage I was thinking of. I marked
it. I always mark the things I like."

Holding the book almost at arm's length, for she was somewhat
long-sighted, and making suitable gestures with her free hand,
she began to read, slowly, dramatically.

"'What are thousand pound fur coats, what are quarter million
incomes?'" She looked up from the page with a histrionic
movement of the head; her orange coiffure nodded portentously.
Denis looked at it, fascinated. Was it the Real Thing and henna,
he wondered, or was it one of those Complete Transformations one
sees in the advertisements?

"'What are Thrones and Sceptres?'"

The orange Transformation--yes, it must be a Transformation--