“There, had ye marked his neck-cloth’s silvery glow.

Transcend the cygnet’s towering crest of snow.”

“Excellent!” the Prince exclaimed. “I commend you, Yarmouth.”

“Since when have you taken to poetry?” Lord Alvanley asked suspiciously. “I think that dark-eyed charmer I saw you with last night may have something to do with it.”

“Not at all!” Lord Yarmouth protested, but the others merely laughed at him.

The discussion on clothes, sport, and specially the chances of their horses at the races, continued to nearly luncheontime.

By then the Prince of Wales had declared his intention of lunching with George Brummel and Lord Dorrington drove Lord Alvanley to White’s.

The seated themselves at their usual table and were deep in argument over the merits of some silver that Lord Alvanley had purchased for his family seat, when Lord Worcester came in through the dining room door and moved automatically towards them.

Suddenly they saw him stiffen and turn away, as it seemed deliberately, to sit at another table.

Lord Alvanley looked up in surprise.

“What is the matter with Worcester?” he enquired.

“Perhaps he perceived that we had nearly finished our meal,” Lord Dorrington replied.

He signalled to the wine waiter to bring him another glass of claret.

“But he always sits with us,” Lord Alvanley insisted.

“Perhaps he is in the doldrums,” Lord Dorrington said. “I believe he is becoming infatuated with one Harriet Wilson, whose acquaintance we have all made at one time or another.”

“She will cost him a mint of money that he does not have,” Lord Alvanley remarked.

Lord Dorrington looked across the room and it appeared to him that Lord Worcester was deliberately avoiding his eyes.

He picked up his glass of wine and said to Lord Alvanley,

“If Mohammed will not go to the mountain, the mountain must go to Mohammed. Let us find out what bee Worcester has in his bonnet.”

He crossed the room and sat himself at Lord Worcester’s table.

“We are worried about you,” he said. “You appear to be giving us a set-down and we don’t like it.”

Lord Worcester looked at him sternly for a moment and then, because he could never keep silent for long, he retorted,

“I don’t care for the friends you keep and that is the truth.”

“What friends?” Lord Alvanley asked, also seating himself at the table.

“Not yours,” Lord Worcester replied, “Dorrington’s.”

“My friends?” Lord Dorrington questioned. “I cannot remember making the acquaintance of anyone unusual in the past day or two.”

Lord Worcester put down his knife and fork with a bang.

“After all I said to you the other day about that outsider Prince Ahmadi,” he said, “you go out of your way to be pleasant to him.”

“What do you mean by that?” Lord Dorrington enquired and his voice was sharp.