CHAPTER IV


About half-way through dinner that night, Cecil de la Borne drew a
long sigh of relief. At last his misgivings were set at rest. His
party was going to be, was already, in fact, pronounced, a success.
A glance at his fair neighbour, however, who was lighting her third
or fourth Russian cigarette since the caviare, sent a shiver of
thankfulness through his whole being. What a sensible fellow Andrew
had been to clear out. This sort of thing would not have appealed to
him at all.

"My dear Cecil," the Princess declared, "I call this perfectly
delightful. Jeanne and I have wanted so much to see you in your own
home. Jeanne, isn't this nicer, ever so much nicer, than anything
you had imagined?"

Jeanne, who was sitting opposite, lifted her remarkable eyes and
glanced around with interest.

"Yes," she admitted, "I think that it is! But then, any place that
looks in the least like a home is a delightful change after all that
rushing about in London."

"I agree with you entirely," Major Forrest declared. "If our friend
has disappointed us at all, it is in the absence of that
primitiveness which he led us to expect. One perceives that one is
drinking Veuve Clicquot of a vintage year, and one suspects the
nationality of our host's cook."