I learned, however, from
the butler that she had left early, in company with the hollow
Society man.
A fortnight later I ran against a young literary friend in Regent
Street, and we lunched together at the Monico.
"I met such a charming woman last night," he said, "a Mrs. Clifton
Courtenay, a delightful woman."
"Oh, do YOU know her?" I exclaimed. "Oh, we're very old friends.
She's always wanting me to go and see her. I really must."
"Oh, I didn't know YOU knew her," he answered. Somehow, the fact
of my knowing her seemed to lessen her importance in his eyes. But
soon he recovered his enthusiasm for her.
"A wonderfully clever woman," he continued. "I'm afraid I
disappointed her a little though." He said this, however, with a
laugh that contradicted his words. "She would not believe I was
THE Mr. Smith. She imagined from my book that I was quite an old
man."
I could see nothing in my friend's book myself to suggest that the
author was, of necessity, anything over eighteen. The mistake
appeared to me to display want of acumen, but it had evidently
pleased him greatly.
"I felt quite sorry for her," he went on, "chained to that
bloodless, artificial society in which she lives.
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