"My dears," Lady Amesbury said, as she stood surrounded by her guests on
the hearth rug of her drawing-room, "you know what my Sunday night dinner
parties are--all sorts and plenty of them, and never a dull man or a
plain woman if I can help it. To-night I've got a new man. He's not much
to look at, but they tell me he's a multimillionaire and making all the
poor people of the country miserable. He's doing something about making
bread dearer. I never did understand these things."
"Heavens, you don't mean Peter Phipps!" Sarah exclaimed.
"His very name," her aunt declared. "How did you guess it, my dear? Here
he is. Be quiet, all of you, and watch Grover announce him. He's such a
snob--Grover. He hates a Mister, anyhow, and 'Peter Phipps' will
dislocate his tongue."
Lady Amesbury was disappointed. Grover had marched with the times, and
the presence of a millionaire made itself felt. His announcement was
sonorous and respectful. Mr. Peter Phipps made his bow to his hostess
under completely auspicious circumstances.
"So kind of you not to forget, Mr. Phipps," she murmured. "My Sunday
parties are always _viva voce_ invitations, and what between not
remembering whom I've asked, and not knowing whether those I've asked
will remember, I generally find it horribly difficult to arrange the
places. We are all right tonight, though. Only two missing. Who are
they, Sarah?"
"Josephine and Mr. Wingate," Sarah replied, with a covert glance
at Phipps.
"Of course! And thank goodness, here they are! Together, too! If there's
anything I love, it's to start one of my dinners with a scandal.
Josephine, did you bring Mr. Wingate or did he bring you?"
Josephine laughed. Then she saw Phipps standing in the background and she
raised her voice a little.
"Mr. Wingate called for me," she explained. "Taxis are so scarce in our
part of the world on Sunday nights, and when one does happen to know a
man who makes enough money on Friday to buy a fleet of motor-cars on
Saturday--"
"My doing," Kendrick interrupted. "I'm his broker. Did you buy the
Rolls-Royce, Wingate?"
"I brought it away with me, chauffeur and all."
"The most delightful car I ever rode in," Josephine pronounced.
Phipps manoeuvred his way to her side. There was a frown on his forehead
as he leaned towards her.
"So a Rolls-Royce is your favourite make of car, Lady Dredlinton,"
he remarked.
"Absolutely! I can't conceive of anything more comfortable. Mr. Wingate
has promised to let me try it in the country next week."
"So my Wolseley is to be scrapped?" Phipps asked, under his breath.
She looked at him pleasantly enough but with a dangerous light in her
eyes.
"Have you a Wolseley?" she murmured. "Oh, yes, I remember! You offered to
send it around to take me shopping."
"I sent it around three mornings," he replied. "You did not use it once.
You did not even open the note I left inside."
"I am not very fond of using other people's cars," she said.
"It need not be another person's car unless you like," he muttered.
She looked at him for a moment thoughtfully. Phipps was a man of brass,
without sensitiveness or sensibility. Nevertheless, he flushed a little.
Just then dinner was announced and Lady Amesbury bustled once more into
the midst of her guests.
"My dears," she told them all, "I've forgotten who takes anybody down!
Scrap along as you are, and you'll find the cards in your places
downstairs. Pick up any one you like. Not you, sir," she added, turning
to Wingate. "You're going to take me. I want to hear all the latest New
York gossip. And--lean down, please--are you really trying to flirt with
Josephine Dredlinton? Don't disturb her unless you're in earnest. She's
got a horrible husband."
"I admire Lady Dredlinton more than any woman I know," Wingate answered.
"One does not flirt with the woman one really cares for."
"Hoity-toity!" Lady Amesbury exclaimed. "That's the real divorce-court
tone. There was a young man---I don't know how many years ago--who used
to talk like that to me at the time Amesbury was Ambassador at Madrid and
took up with that Lola de Mendoza woman. Neither affair came to anything,
though. Amesbury got tired of Spain, and my young man married a rich
grocer's daughter. Still, I recognise the tone. Here we all are. Now you
play a sort of hunt-the-slipper game, looking for your places, all of
you. I know mine, thank God! Now let's pray to Heaven the soup's hot!
And don't any one talk to me while I'm eating it. The present generation
are shocking soup eaters."
Wingate found Josephine on his other side and was happy. Phipps was just
across the table. His hostess proceeded to give the latter some of her
attention.
"Mr. Phipps," she said, "they tell me you've taken that scoundrel of a
nephew of mine--Dredlinton--into your business, whatever it is. He won't
do you any good, you know."
"I'm very sorry to hear that," Phipps replied. "He seemed to me rather a
brainy person for his order."
"One for me," Lady Amesbury chuckled. "I don't care. If I chose to come
on the Stock Exchange, I've got brains enough to ruin most of you. But I
don't choose. I like to hear of the rest of you tearing yourselves to
pieces, though. If you could keep Dredlinton out of mischief for a year,
Mr. Phipps, I'd think you were the most wonderful man I ever met. He's a
bad lot, but I tolerate him because I love his wife."
Phipps scowled across the table to where Wingate's head was nearly
touching Josephine's.
"Lady Dredlinton seems to be achieving great popularity in every
direction," he said sourly.
"And a jolly good thing, too," Lady Amesbury declared. "If ever a woman
earned the right to kick the traces away for a bit, Josephine has. Don't
you mind anything I say, my dear," she added, as Josephine looked up at
the sound of her name. "You settle down to a nice comfortable flirtation,
if you want to. You owe it to yourself, all right, and then there's some
coming to you. And I'm your husband's aunt who tells you that."
"I'm not at all sure," Phipps observed, "that you don't underrate your
nephew's ability."
"The only thing I know about his ability," was the blunt reply, "is
his ability to borrow a few hundreds from any one fool enough to lend
it to him, and then invent excuses for not paying it back. He's good
at that, if you like. Still, don't let me set you against him, Mr.
Phipps. Every shilling he gets out of you and your company is so much
saved to the family."
Lady Amesbury, who, notwithstanding her apparent inconsequence, had a
keen eye for her guests, directed her conversation for a time into
another channel, and finally changed places with Sarah in order to come
into closer touch with a spiritualist from Sweden, who was on the lookout
for a medium. Sarah turned appealingly toward Wingate.
"Jimmy and I want to be taken to the theatre to-morrow night," she
announced. "He doesn't get any money till Wednesday, and I haven't
earned enough this week to pay my garage bill."
"I'll take you both," Wingate promised quickly, "if Lady Dredlinton will
make a fourth."
"Delightful," Josephine assented.
"I have a box at the Opera," Phipps announced, leaning forward. "Give me
the pleasure of entertaining you all."
Josephine shook her head.
"Tannhãuser! I am sorry, Mr. Phipps, but I couldn't possibly stand it.
Ask us another time, won't you? To-morrow night," she went on, turning to
Wingate, "let us be absolutely frivolous. A revue, I think."
"And dinner first at the Milan," Wingate insisted.
"And supper afterwards and a dance at Ciro's," Sarah put in. "I must tell
Jimmy the glad tidings."
Peter Phipps made his adieux to Lady Amesbury early and drove in his
electric coupé first to Romano's, then to the Milan and finally to
Ciro's. Here he found Dredlinton, seated in a corner by himself, a little
sulky at the dancing proclivities of the young lady whom he had brought.
He greeted Phipps with some surprise.
"Hullo, Dreadnought!" he exclaimed. "What's wrong with my garrulous
aunt? Has the party broken up early or weren't you a success?"
"I wasn't a success," Phipps confessed grimly. "Look here, Dredlinton,
are you sober enough to talk horse common sense?"
"Sober? My God, can you tell me how any one can get a drink here!" was
the injured reply. "I was just off somewhere else. One bottle of
champagne, if you please, between two of us, and the liqueur brandies
were served with the soup. Call this--a Christian country!"
"Then if you're sober, and for once you seem to be," Phipps said, "just
listen to me. Listen hard, mind, and don't interrupt. Have you ever
wondered why I put you on the Board of the B.& I.?"
"My title, I suppose--and social position."
"Rot!" Phipps answered scornfully. "Your title and your social position
aren't worth a damn to me. I put you on because of your wife."
Dredlinton stared at him.
"Why, you didn't even know her!"
"Never mind. I knew her to look at. I wanted to know her. Now I do know
her, and it hasn't done me much good."
Dredlinton sat a little more erect in his place. Behind his cynical
exterior, his evil brain had begun to work.
"Look here, Phipps," he said, "I don't care about this conversation. If
a man happens to admire another man's wife, her husband is scarcely the
proper confidant."
"Oh, yes, I know your theory!" Phipps scoffed. "You're willing enough to
hide your head in the sand and take the goods the gods send you. That
doesn't suit me. I happen to need your help."
"My help?" Dredlinton repeated. "The poor little spider to help the
mighty Phipps! You're not finding difficulties in the way of your
suit, are you?"
"If I do, it will be the worse for you," was the gruff reply. "As
you're going on now, Dredlinton, it will be your wife, and your wife
alone, who'll keep you out of jail before many weeks are past. How
about that cheque to Farnham and Company last week? Farnham's say they
never got it, but I hear it's come back through the bank with a queer
endorsement upon it."
Dredlinton caught at the tablecloth. The malicious gleam in his eyes gave
way to a look of positive fear.
"I can't remember--anything here--without any books," he muttered.
"Tell me what it is you want, Phipps? I am ready to do any thing--you
know that."
"Your wife's friendship with this fellow Wingate has got to be nipped in
the bud," Phipps declared.
"Yes, but how?" Dredlinton demanded. "Josephine and I aren't anything to
one another any more--you know that. She goes her own way."
"She lives in your house," Phipps said. "You remain her husband nominally
and you have therefore a certain amount of authority. You must forbid her
to receive Wingate."
"I'll forbid her, all right," Dredlinton assented, "but I won't guarantee
that she'll obey."
"Then you must give orders to the servants," Phipps insisted. "I don't
need to suggest to you, Dredlinton," he went on, "what means you should
use to make your wife obey you, but there are means, and if you're not
the man to realise them, I'm very much surprised in you. I will begin
with a concrete case. Your wife, together with that fellow Wilshaw and
Miss Baldwin, have accepted an invitation from Wingate to dine and go to
a theatre to-morrow night. You must see that your wife does not go."
"Very well," Dredlinton promised, "I'll manage it somehow."
"See that you do," Phipps enjoined earnestly. "Your wife is one of those
misguided women with a strong sense of duty. Unless you behave like a
damn fool, you can reestablish some measure of control over her. Do so.
There are certain circumstances," he went on, his face wrinkled a little
with emotion, his voice deep and earnest, "there are certain
circumstances, Dredlinton, under which I might be inclined to behave
towards you with great generosity. I leave you to guess what those
circumstances are. I will show you the way later on."
Dredlinton felt hope stir once more through his shocked and terrified
senses. He lit a cigarette with fingers which had ceased to tremble,
leaned a little back in his place and stared at his companion curiously.
"Phipps," he asked, "what the devil do you and this fellow Wingate see
in my wife?"
"What a man like you would never look for," was the harsh reply.