and invariably graced by the presence of certain guests who seemed
to have been called in out of the street at the last moment. Van
der Roet's Japanese menus were curious, and at times inimical to
digestion, but the personality of the host was charming. As to Sir
John Oglethorpe, the question of the dinner postponed troubled her
little: another repast, the finest that London's finest restaurant
could furnish, would certainly be forthcoming before long. In Sir
John's case, her discomposure took the form of sympathy for her
friend in his recent bereavement. He had been searching all his
life for a perfect cook, and he had found, or believed he had
found, such an one in Narcisse; wherefore the Marchesa was fully
persuaded that, if that artist should evade the guillotine, she
would again taste his incomparable handiwork, even though he were
suspected of murdering his whole family as well as the partner of
his joys.

That same afternoon a number of the balked entertainers
foregathered in the Marchesa's drawing-room, the dominant subject
of discourse being the approaching dissolution of London society
from the refusal of one human to cook food for another. Those
present were gathered in two groups. In one the Colonel, in spite
of the recent desertion of his Oriental, was asserting that the
Government should be required to bring over consignments of
perfectly trained Indian cooks, and thus trim the balance between
dining room and kitchen; and to the other Mrs. Gradinger, a gaunt,
ill-dressed lady in spectacles, with a commanding nose and dull,
wispy hair, was proclaiming in a steady metallic voice, that it was
absolutely necessary to double the school rate at once in order to
convert all the girls and some of the boys as well, into perfectly
equipped food-cooking animals; but her audience gradually fell