Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-12-08
CHAPTER VII.
Luncheon.

AuuCuCOu.
He had lunched at the Constitu-
tional with a chance acquaintance
picked up on his first week in Lon
don. so he knew something of the
ways of English clubs. yet the vast
hall Of this place daunted him for
moment.
However, the club servants SEEM
ing to know him. and recognizing
that indecision Is the most fatal
weakness of man, he crossed the
hall, and, seeing some gentlemen go
ing up the great staircase. he fol-
lowed to a door in the first landing.
He saw through the glass swing
doors that this was the great lunch
con room Dom Of the club: and. having
stairs again where good fortune, in
, the form Of Q .bald-headed man with
out mt. or stick coming through a
passageway indicated the cloakroom
Here he washed his hands and
brushed his hair and, looking at him.
self in glass, Judged his appear
ance to be conservative and all
right. He. a democrat Of the demo-
old crusted conservatism, might have
felt qualms Of political conscience
but for the fact that earthly poll
tics, social theories and social in
stincts were less to him now than to
an inhabitant of the dark body that
tumbles and fumbles around Sirius.
Less than the difference between the
minnow and the roach to the roach
in the landing net.
Leaving the place he almost ran into
the arms Of gentleman who was
III do.'
He knew that man. He had seen his
newspaper portrait in America as we'll
as England. 1t was the leader of his
majesty's opposition, the queen bee of
this hive where he was about to Ssit
down to lunch. The queen bee did not
seem very friendly, fact that augufed
i'll for the attitude of the workers and
the droneS.
before mentioned, he looked in.
The place was crowded
1t looked to him as though for the
space of q mile and a half or SO lay
tables, tables, tables, all occupied by
Conservative looking men, and no
doubt mostly lords.
1t was too late to withdraw without
shattering his own self-respect and
self-confdence. The cold bath was
before him, and there was no use put
He opened the door and entered,
walking between the tables and look
ing the luncheon parties in the face.
The man seated has a tremendous
advantage over the man standing in
members met by the new comer's
glance, bowed in the curious manner
Of the seated Briton, the eyes of others
fell away. others nodded frigidly. 1t
fish before a shark leading him to his
food, a club waiter developed and
piloted him to small unoccupied
table, where he took seat and looked
at q menu handed to him by the pilot.
He ordered fillet of sole, roast chick
were the easiest things to order. He
would have ordered roast elephants
trunk had it been easier and on the
menu.
Gate. or just dismounted after the
charge Of the Light Brigade, would
have possessed as little instinct for
menu hunting as Jones.
He had pierced the ranks of the
British aristocracy; that was nothing
sharing their food, and they were all
inimical toward him; that was every
thing.
He felt the draught. He felt that
these men had down on him; felt
it by all sorts of senses that seemed
newly developed. Not down on him,
Jones, but a down on him. Rochester,
Arthur Coningsby Delaware. twenty
first earl of.
And the extraordinary thing was
that he felt it. What on earth did it
matter to him If these men looked
coldly upon another man? 1t did. 1t
mattered quite lot, more than per-
haps 1t ever mattered to the other
man. Is the soul such shallow and
blind thing that it cannot sort the true
from the false, the material from the
immaterial, cannot see that an insult
leveled at a likeness is not an insult leF.
eled at 1t?
Surely not. and yet the soul of VIC
tor Jones resented the GOODNESS of
others toward the supposed body of
Rochester, as though it were per-
sonal insult.
1t was the first intimation to Jones
that when the actor puts on his part
he puts on more than a cloak or
trunk hose, that the personality he
had put on had nerves curiously as
ISOLATED with his own nerves, and
that. though he might say to him
self a hundred times with respect to
the attitudes of other people, "Pah!
they don't mean me-" that formula
was no charm against disdain.
The wine butler, . gentleman not
unlike Mr. Church, was now at his
elbow. and ne found himself contem-
plating the wine card of the senior
conservative, p serious document, IL