ring shrubs of every
description, and a fountain, with wonderfully carved water nymphs,
brought with its basin from Italy. Hidden in the foliage, a small
orchestra was playing very softly. The atmosphere of the place was
languorous and delicious.

"Leave us here," Margaret insisted, with a little exclamation of
content. "Neither Cynthia nor I want to go any further. Come back and
fetch us in time for our appointment."

The two men wandered off. The place was indeed a marvel of architecture,
a country house, of which only the shell remained, modernised and made
wonderful by the genius of a great architect. The first room which
they entered when they left the winter-garden, was as large as a small
restaurant, panelled in cream colour, with a marvellous ceiling. There
were tables of various sizes laid for supper, rows of champagne bottles
in ice buckets, and servants eagerly waiting for orders. Already a
sprinkling of the guests had found their way here. The two men crossed
the floor to the cocktail bar in the far corner, behind which a familiar
face grinned at them. It was Jimmy, the bartender from Soto's, who stood
there with a wonderful array of bottles on a walnut table.

"If it were not a perfectly fatuous question, I should ask what you were
doing here, Jimmy?" Francis remarked.

"I always come for Sir Timothy's big parties, sir," Jimmy explained.
"Your first visit, isn't it, sir?"

"My first," Francis assented.

"And mine," his companion echoed.

"What can I have the pleasure of making for you, sir?" the man enquired.

"A difficult question," Francis admitted. "It is barely an hour and a
half since we finished diner. On the other hand, we are certainly going
to have some supper some time or other."

Jimmy nodded understandingly.

"Leave it to me, sir," he begged.

He served them with a foaming white concoction in tall glasses. A
genuine lime bobbed up and down in the liquid.

"Sir Timothy has the limes sent over from his own estate in South
America," Jimmy announced. "You will find some things in that drink you
don't often taste."

The two men sipped their beverage and pronounced it delightful. Jimmy
leaned a little across the table.

"A big thing on to-night, isn't there, sir?" he asked cautiously.

"Is there?" Francis replied. "You mean--?"

Jimmy motioned towards the open window, close to which the river was
flowing by.

"You going down, sir?"

Francis shook his head dubiously.

"Where t