' Is it the salt you asked a blessing on?' said Charlie.
' No; the non-suppression.'
' Then you really are going to America in the autumn?' asked he. ' I beg its pardon, the fall.'
' Yes. Fall is just as good a word as autumn, by the way.'
' Oh, quite. Over there they think it better, and they have quite as good a right to judge as we. If they called it the pump-handle it wouldn't make any difference.'
' Not the slightest. Yes, I am going.'
Charlie smiled.
' Oh, I suddenly understand about the mercantile spirit,' he said. ' It was stupid of me not to have guessed at once.'
' It was rather. Charlie, I should like to talk to you about it. The governor has been making some uncommonly sensible remarks to me on the subject.'
' He would. Your father has an immense quantity of dry common-sense. Yes, come round after the opera, and we'll talk it out lengthways. Here's Mrs. Palmer. I hope Pagani will sing extremely loud to-night, otherwise we shan't hear a note.'
Two electric broughams were waiting at the Pall Mall entrance as Mrs. Palmer rustled out between rows of liveried men, whose sole office appeared to be to look reverential as she passed, as if to have just seen her was the Mecca of their aspirations. Then, after a momentary hesitation between the two young men, Bertie followed her dazzling opera-cloak into the first brougham, and, amid loud and voluble regrets on her part that there was not room for three, and the exaction of a solemn promise that Charlie would not quarrel with his friend for having monopolized her, they started. Charlie gave a little sigh, whether of disappointment or not is debatable, and followed them alone in the second brougham.
