Luli and every one. It would be our duty, don't you think? But Venables used to be an awfully good sort—I don't believe he's really proud—and if we do run into him again, we'll take him about with us.... I'm awfully hard up just now.'

The Crevequers did not suffer from pride.

Three weeks later, Venables walked into the Crevequers' room. It was about six o'clock; the Crevequers had guests, who smoked and drank wine and conversed. Tommy Crevequer sat astride on the table; Betty was on the arm of a chair, leaning back against Gina Lunelli's broad shoulder. It was confusing to come into such an intimate party.

Tommy looked round, and broke off in the middle of what he was saying, and got off the table. He was glad Venables had come. Venables apologized.

'How are you, Crevequer?... But I'm interrupting you; I'll come in another time.'

But Tommy drew him in, and introduced him to Betty, and to Luli and Gina and all the rest, and offered him wine. It was a convivial gathering; Venables, being a stranger, and wearing a rather clean collar, perhaps threw a shade of restraint over it, but mirth broke out again before long. At last, with common accord, the company took its leave—all but Venables.

'Well, how are you Crevequer? I've been looking for you, you know, all over the place.'

Tommy had almost forgotten how much he had admired Venables once; it returned to him now as they talked. He would have liked to see a good deal of Venables. Venables painted, he learnt—painted successfully, Tommy presumed, looking at the clean collar and the well-cut coat. It was perhaps a pity, Tommy reflected, his melancholy eyes, under their quick, amused brows, turning from Venables to his sister, that he and Betty were not better dressed to-day. Venables was probably a person of prejudices, and his collar was very clean.

Venables learned that Crevequer was a journalist.

'What's your paper?'

'That.' Tommy indicated Marchese Peppino on the table; it came out that day.

'Oh.'

Venables just glanced at it; he showed no desire to inspect it more closely; possibly he knew enough about it already. His clever face was scrupulously devoid of expression.

'I chiefly do sketches,' Tommy elaborated. 'You know the sort of thing? They aren't funny, not a bit; but they sell. Oh, I write for it, too, of course; and that's funnier, rather. Novelle in corto, you know; we have the news in, as much as if we were anybody; combine instruction with amusement, don't you know.'

Venables knew quite well.

'I wonder,' he thought afterwards, 'why he shoved it down my throat like that. Mere cheek, perhaps, or to show he didn't mind, or to warn me off at once in case I didn't like his style. Or doesn't he really, perhaps, realize....'

Not really to realize, Crevequer must have pushed very far from the shores of decency.

Venables let the topic of Marchese Peppino lie where Tommy had dropped it. He delivered his mother's message, not stiffly, but with voice and face a little vacant of expression, lacking interest. He asked the Crevequers to come to lunch to-morrow at Parker's Hotel. Mrs. Venables had not been aware of Betty, but Warren supposed that her existence would add a further element of picturesque interest to the 'impression.' The invitation was accepted. Venables stayed a little longer, and examined the ceiling, and discovered incidentally that the Crevequers—probably by the sheer insane futility of their stammering flow—had the power of pricking him at all points to sudden laughter.

He considered it walking home. In his search for Tommy Crevequer he had happened upon a man—he kept a billiard saloon—who knew him rather well. His remarks, entirely friendly (he was really fond of Tommy), conveyed to Venables several items of information about him; among others, that Venables would at no time have any difficulty in finding him, as a good many people thought it prudent to keep him under view. At the same time, Tommy's acquaintances seemed to assume as a matter of course that he might find an occasional plunge into obscurity a convenience. These casually conveyed impressions Venables had assimilated without surprise. As he would have said, one knew the sort. And Venables liked people who amused him.

But Marchese Peppino stuck in his throat.

Betty observed to Tommy:

'What fun. We shall probably forget to go. But if we don't, we shall have to eat so much that we shan't need any more for a week. How economical! Lunch in England—do you remember, Tommy?'

Tommy was thinking.

'Betty, we don't dress well enough. I want a new hat; so do you. Venables is better dressed than we are. We must be tidy, and cut a dash at lunch. It's a mistake not to be well dressed; people are so prejudiced. I shall wear a collar to-morrow—a quite clean one, like Venables. And we won't have any supper to-night, because we shall have to eat too much at lunch. And I suppose Mrs. Venables will talk about father's books, as she's so interested; so let's read them.'

'Perhaps,' said Betty, 'we'd better read her own works too; only I don't feel sure they'd be quite nice, so I think we'll wait till we're older—thirty-two and thirty-three. We can tell her if she asks that we read so little that we have to be very careful about what we read. It would be so disappointing to read a book we didn't like; she'll understand that.'

CHAPTER III

OF MENTAL STANDPOINTS

The Crevequers, as they had anticipated, did eat too much at lunch—a good deal too much. They cast, occasionally, wondering and interested glances round the dining-room, and took in the fact that every one at all the little tables was also eating too much. It was borne upon them that this exorbitance, a strange incident in their own lives, was to these others a daily occurrence. Every day at one o'clock the dining-room at Parker's, the dining-rooms at all the hotels of its genus, were filled with Anglo-Saxons and a few others, all sitting round little tables, and all eating too much. Then again at dinner-time.... The impressiveness of the thought widened their eyes, filling them with an awestruck solemnity. To eat too much, a good deal too much, twice—nay, thrice—a day (for visions of the Anglo-Saxon breakfast haunted them: one had honey, one ordered omelette) during a period of weeks and months—it required thinking over quietly afterwards. At present, face to face with the amazing succession of the courses, the contemplation of all it meant made one a little dizzy. The Crevequers took all the courses; they would not have missed one; they intended to see this thing through. As they ate they talked stammeringly. Mrs. Venables was struck by the melancholy of their pondering eyes. Her interest—she had an immense fund of it—was gathering itself together to pour itself unstintedly forth on Maddan Crevequer's children. Her son and her daughter and her niece watched the gathering; it was a familiar process to them. The son watched it with languid amusement; the daughter with stolid unconcern (she was a bored child of eighteen); the niece with eyes inscrutably remote. The Crevequers were copy; they came to be studied, to be drawn out; they responded to the process with their usual affability. They answered questions as to their way of life, their friends, the customs of the Neapolitan poor, their religion. Mrs. Venables, as she said, found the Roman Catholic standpoint quite immensely interesting. The Crevequers groped uncomprehendingly after the reason of such interest, and gave it up. They were, however, quite ready to answer the questions put to them; it seemed a harmless craze enough. Mrs. Venables had been to Mass the day before, and had, she affirmed, been much struck by the impressive