Chapter 2 No.2

Madame Carlotti, clothed in a kimono of emphatic shade, sat by the fire in her rooms in Knightsbridge and read her mail while sipping coffee. She was the wife of an Italian diplomat, a sort of wandering plenipotentiary who did business in every part of the world but London, and with every Government but that of Britain. It was the signora's somewhat incomprehensible complaint that her husband's duties forced her to live in that fog-bound metropolis, and having thus achieved the pedestal of a martyr, she poured abuse on everything English from climate to customs.

Possessed of a certain social dexterity and the ability to make the most ordinary conversation seem to concern a forbidden topic, Madame Carlotti was in great demand as a guest, and abused more English habits and attended more dinner-parties than any other woman in London.

From beneath seven tradesmen's letters she extracted one from Lady

Durwent.

'8 CHELMSFORD GARDENS,

'DEAREST LUCIA,-I am counting on you for next Friday. A young

American author studying England-I suppose like that Count

Something-or-other in Pickwick Papers-is coming to dinner. I

understand he drinks very little, so I am relying on you to thaw him.

'Stackton Dunckley insists upon coming, though I tell him that it is dangerous; and of course people are saying dreadful things, I know. He is so persistent. There will be just half-a-dozen unusual people there, my dear, so don't fail me. Dinner will be at 8.30.-So sincerely, SYBIL DERWENT.

'P.S.-Don't you think you could make Stackton interested in you? Your husband is away so much.'

Madame Carlotti smiled with her teeth and drank some very strong coffee.

'It ees deefficult,' she said, with that seductive formation of the lips used by her countrywomen when speaking English, 'for a magnet to attract putty. Still-there ees the American. At least I shall not be altogether bored.'