Everett was a man of practical ideas. It was he who took the matter
in hand. The refreshment contractor admitted that curious goblets of
German glass occasionally crept into their stock. One of the waiters,
on the understanding that in no case should he be called upon to pay
for them, admitted having broken more than one wine-glass on that
particular evening: thought it not unlikely he might have attempted
to hide the fragments under a convenient palm. The whole thing
evidently was a dream. So youth decided at the time, and the three
marriages took place within three months of one another.

It was some ten years later that Armitage told me the story that night
in the Club smoking-room. Mrs. Everett had just recovered from a
severe attack of rheumatic fever, contracted the spring before in
Paris. Mrs. Camelford, whom previously I had not met, certainly
seemed to me one of the handsomest women I have ever seen. Mrs.
Armitage--I knew her when she was Alice Blatchley--I found more
charming as a woman than she had been as a girl. What she could have
seen in Armitage I never could understand. Camelford made his mark
some ten years later: poor fellow, he did not live long to enjoy his
fame. Dick Everett has still another six years to work off; but he is
well behaved, and there is talk of a petition.

It is a curious story altogether, I admit. As I said at the
beginning, I do not myself believe it.