It is not so long since--well, it is a long story.

However, in less than one minute the assembled guests were listening to the old-time tale of Margaret's ancestress, and the waiter paused breathless on the threshold to hear the end, before he announced dinner.
There are two very different ways of dining--dining with Mr.Bellingham, and dining without him.

But for those who have dined with him, all other prandial arrangements are an empty sham.

At least so Claudius said to Margaret in an aside, when they got to the fruit.

And Margaret, who looked wonderfully beautiful with a single band of gold through her black hair, laughed her assent, and said it was hopeless for the men of this day to enter the lists against the veterans of the _ancien regime_.
And Claudius was not in the least hurt by the comparison, odious though it would have been to Mr.Barker, had he been there.