w nights after the meeting in the woods, Leigh was hurrying along
Birdseye Avenue, like the belated White Rabbit on its way to the
Queen's croquet party. He was going to a lecture on Velasquez at the
house of one of his colleagues, Professor Littleford. The beginning of
the lecture was set for eight o'clock, and it was now past the hour,
for he had been detained in the city by the joint debate between Emmet
and Judge Swigart, put at half past five that the workingmen might have
an opportunity to attend.

The time consumed in returning to the Hall, in dining and dressing,
almost convinced him of the advisability of staying at home, but he
reflected that to do so was probably to miss a chance of seeing Miss
Wycliffe, and this was a risk he was by no means disposed to run. He
was possessed by a desire to see her again and to test the permanency
of her last mood with him, when she had demanded her gloves and left
him in despair. If she were inclined to repentance, he felt that he
would know it, even if he managed to meet her for only a moment in the
midst of the crowd. But it chanced that fate was kinder to him than he
had dared to hope.

As he had anticipated, he was one of the last arrivals, but he was not
destined to experience the embarrassment he feared from this
circumstance. The wide hallway of the great house was deserted, and he
threaded his way through several dimly lighted drawing-rooms in the
direction of a voice that indicated the location of the lecturer. Not
until he stood in the doorway of what appeared to be an assembly hall,
and was in reality the ballroom of the house, did he realise the reason
of the obscurity through which he had passed. At the far end of the
room, he saw one of the well-known portraits of Philip IV projected by
a lantern upon a huge sheet of canvas. The widening shaft of light
that traversed the intervening space dimly disclosed the audience as a
series of heads, from which arose a sibilant wave of amused comment as
the portrait of the king melted into that of his daughter, a serious
infant with corkscrew curls, all unconscious of the monstrous absurdity
of her voluminous skirts. This transition from one picture to another
was accepted by one of the audience as an opportunity to shift his
chair, and Leigh saw the bishop's salient profile thrown for a moment
on the canvas, before he subsided again to the general level.

The young man supposed that in thus discovering the whe