At lunch he made one mistake, and enjoyed one very remarkable piece of luck.
The mistake was to order an artichoke. He did not know how to eat an artichoke. He had never tried to eat an artichoke, and his first essay in this difficult and complex craft was a sad fiasco. It would not have mattered if, at the table next to his own, there had not been two obviously experienced women, one ill dressed, with a red hat, the other well dressed, with a blue hat; one middle-aged, the other much younger; but both very observant. And even so, it would scarcely have mattered, had not the younger woman been so slim, pretty, and alluring. While tolerably careless of the opinion of the red-hatted plain woman of middle age, he desired the unqualified approval of the delightful young thing in the blue hat. They certainly interested themselves in his manoeuvres with the artichoke, and their amusement was imperfectly concealed. He forgave the blue hat, but considered that the red hat ought to have known better. They could not be princesses, nor even titled aristocrats. He supposed them to belong to some baccarat-playing county family.
The piece of luck consisted in the passage down the restaurant of the Countess of Chell, who had been lunching there with a party, and whom he had known locally in more gusty days. The countess bowed stiffly to the red hat, and the red hat responded with eager fulsomeness. It seemed to be here as it no longer was in the Five Towns: everybody knew everybody! The red hat and the blue might be titled, after all, he thought. Then, by sheer accident, the countess caught sight of him, and stopped dead, bringing her escort to a standstill behind her. Edward Henry blushed and rose.
"Is it _you_, Mr. Machin?" murmured the still lovely creature warmly.
They shook hands. Never had social pleasure so thrilled him. The conversation was short. He did not presume on the past. He knew that here he was not on his own ash-pit, as they say in the Five Towns. The countess and her escort went forward. Edward Henry sat down again.
He gave the red and the blue hats one calm glance, which they failed to withstand. The affair of the artichoke was forever wiped out.
After lunch he went forth again in his electric brougham. The weather had cleared. The opulent streets were full of pride and sunshine. And as he penetrated into one shop after another, receiving kowtows, obeisances, curtsies, homage, surrender, resignation, submission, he gradually comprehended that it takes all sorts to make a world, and that those who are called to greatness must accept with dignity the ceremonials inseparable from greatness. And the world had never seemed to him so fine, nor any adventure so diverting and uplifting as this adventure.