have been more graceful, more stately. The bend
of her slender body at the waist, the pose of her head, the line of
her shoulder, the suggestion of dimple in her elbow--all were so many
separate allurements to the kindling eye of love.

Terence certainly added little to the general brilliancy and gaiety of
the occasion, for he stood in a corner and looked at Patricia whenever
he was not dancing with her, 'all eye when one was present, all memory
when one was gone.'

Chapter XIII. A Penelope secret.

Shortly after midnight our own little company broke up, loath to
leave the charming spectacle. The guests departed with the greatest
reluctance, having given Dawson a half-sovereign for waiting up to
lock the door. Mrs. Beresford said that it seemed unendurable to leave
matters in such an unfinished condition, and her son promised to come
very early next morning for the latest bulletins.

"I leave all the romances in your hands," he whispered to me; "do let
them turn out happily, do!"

Salemina also retired to her virtuous couch, remembering that she was to
visit infant schools with a great educational dignitary on the morrow.

Francesca and I turned the gas entirely out, although we had been
sitting all the evening in a kind of twilight, and slipping on our
dressing-gowns sat again at the window for a farewell peep into the
past, present, and future of the 'Brighthelmston set.'

At midnight the dowager duchess arrived. She must at least have been a
dowager duchess, and if there is anything greater, within the bounds of
a reasonable imagination, she was that. Long streamers of black tulle
floated from a diamond soup-tureen which surmounted her hair. Narrow
puffings of white traversed her black velvet gown in all directions,
making her look somewhat like a railway map, and a diamond fan-chain
defined, or attempted to define, what was in its nature neither
definable nor confinable, to wit, her waist, or what had been, in early
youth, her waist.

The entire company was stirred by the arrival of the dowager duchess,
and it undoubtedly added new eclat to what was already a fashionable
event; for we counted three gentlemen who wore orders glittering on
ribbons that crossed the white of their immaculate linen, and there was
an Indian potentate with a jewelled turban who divided attention with
the dowager duchess's diamond soup-tureen.

At twelve-thirty Lord Brighthelmston chided Celandine for flirting too
much.