MR REGINALD DIMMOCK proved himself, despite his extreme
youth, to be a man of the world and of experiences, and a practised
talker. Conversation between him and Nella Racksole seemed
never to flag. They chattered about St Petersburg, and the ice on
the Neva, and the tenor at the opera who had been exiled to
Siberia, and the quality of Russian tea, and the sweetness of
Russian champagne, and various other aspects of Muscovite
existence. Russia exhausted, Nella lightly outlined her own doings
since she had met the young man in the Tsar's capital, and this
recital brought the topic round to London, where it stayed till the
final piece of steak was eaten. Theodore Racksole noticed that Mr
Dimmock gave very meagre information about his own
movements, either past or future. He regarded the youth as a
typical hanger-on of Courts, and wondered how he had obtained
his post of companion to Prince Aribert of Posen, and who Prince
Aribert of Posen might be. The millionaire thought he had once
heard of Posen, but he wasn't sure; he rather fancied it was one of
those small nondescript German States of which five-sixths of the
subjects are Palace officials, and the rest charcoal-burners or
innkeepers. Until the meal was nearly over, Racksole said little -
perhaps his thoughts were too busy with Jules' wink to Mr
Dimmock, but when ices had been followed by coffee, he decided
that it might be as well, in the interests of the hotel, to discover
something about his daughter's friend. He never for an instant
questioned her right to possess her own friends; he had always left
her in the most amazing liberty, relying on her inherited good
sense to keep her out of mischief; but, quite apart from the wink,
he was struck by Nella's attitude towards Mr Dimmock, an attitude
in which an amiable scorn was blended with an evident desire to