We sat a long time over dinner. Eve was between a cousin of mine--who was
a member of Parliament, a master of foxhounds, and in his way quite a
distinguished person--and the old Earl of Enterdean, my godfather; and
they were both of them obviously her abject slaves. No one seemed in the
least inclined to move and it was nearly eleven o'clock before we passed
into the private room I had engaged, where coffee and some bridge tables
awaited us. We broke up there into little groups. I left Eve talking to my
sister and was on my way to try to get near her father when the Countess
of Enterdean, a perfectly charming old lady who had known me from boyhood,
intercepted me.
"My dear Paul," she said, "I cannot thank you enough for having given us
the opportunity of meeting these most delightful Americans, and I really
must tell you this--I had meant to keep it a secret, but from you I
cannot; I knew all the time that the name of Bundercombe was familiar to
me, and suddenly it came over me like a flash! Directly I asked Mr.
Bundercombe in what part of America his home was, of course it was all
clear to me. What a small world it is! Do you know," she concluded
impressively, "that it was just these two people, Mr.
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