guests, by a rotary movement like the waters of a maelstrom, moved past
her in a rapid and babbling stream, twisted about her, and came down
again. She welcomed Lord Robert effusively, and motioned to him to stand
by her side. Then she introduced her daughter to Drake and sent them
adrift through the rooms.

The rooms were large ones with parquet flooring from which all furniture
had been removed, except the palms and ferns by the walls and the heavy
chandeliers overhead. It was not yet ten o'clock, but already the house
was crowded, and every moment there were floods of fresh arrivals. First
came statesmen and diplomatists, then people who had been to the
theatres, and toward the end of the evening some of the actors
themselves. The night was close and the atmosphere hot and oppressive. At
the farther end of the suite there was a refreshment-room with its
lantern lights pulled open; and there the crush was densest and the
commotion greatest. The click-clack of many voices cut the thick air as
with a thousand knives, and over the multitudinous clatter there was
always the unintelligible boom of the band downstairs.

Most of the guests looked tired. The men made some effort to be cheerful,
but the women were frankly jaded and fagged. Bedizened with diamonds,
coated with paint and powder, laden with rustling silks, they looked
weary and worn out. When spoken to they would struggle to smile, but the
smiles would break down after a moment into dismal looks of misery and
oppression.

"Had enough?" whispered Lord Robert to Drake.

Drake was satisfied, and Lord Robert began to make their excuses.

"Going already!" said Mrs. Macrae. "An official engagement, you say?--Mr.
Drake, is it? Oh, don't tell me! I know--_I_ know! Well, you'll be
married and settled one of these days--and then!"

They were in a hansom cab driving across London in the direction of
Bartimaeus's Hospital. Drake was bare-headed and fanning himself with his
crush hat. Lord Robert was lighting a cigarette.

"Pshaw! What a stifling den! Did you ever hear such a clitter-clatter? A
perfect Tower of Babel building company! What in the name of common sense
do people suppose they're doing by penning themselves up like that on a
night like this? What are they thinking about?"

"Thinking about, dear boy? You're unreasonable! Nobody wants to think
about anything in such scenes of charming folly."

"But the women! Did you _ever_ see such faded, worn-out dummies