a row of pearls. The costume, so richly dowagerish, so
suggestive of the Royal Family, made her look more than ever like
something on the Halls.

"What have you been doing all this time?" she asked.

"Well," said Denis, and he hesitated, almost voluptuously. He
had a tremendously amusing account of London and its doings all
ripe and ready in his mind. It would be a pleasure to give it
utterance. "To begin with," he said...

But he was too late. Mrs. Wimbush's question had been what the
grammarians call rhetorical; it asked for no answer. It was a
little conversational flourish, a gambit in the polite game.

"You find me busy at my horoscopes," she said, without even being
aware that she had interrupted him.

A little pained, Denis decided to reserve his story for more
receptive ears. He contented himself, by way of revenge, with
saying "Oh?" rather icily.

"Did I tell you how I won four hundred on the Grand National this
year?"

"Yes," he replied, still frigid and mono-syllabic. She must have
told him at least six times.

"Wonderful, isn't it? Everything is in the Stars. In the Old
Days, before I had the Stars to help me, I used to lose