rs were among
the guests to-night; they went away soon, just after the affair with the
picture; to-morrow will be our dark day. If it had not been for this demon
of a duke and his familiar, whoever they are, all would have gone well.
Now we are distrusted, and they will crush us. Let us fall facing the
enemy. Within an hour I will have the truth about the Duke. Did I ever
tell you what a price Denslow paid for that picture?"

"No, I do not wish to hear."

"You are right. Come with me."

The novel disrespect excited by the scandal of Honoria and the picture
seemed to have inspired the two hundred people who remained with a
cheerful ease. Eating, drinking excessively of Denslow's costly wines,
dancing to music which grew livelier and more boisterous as the musicians
imbibed more of the inspiriting juice, and, catching scraps of the
scandal, threw out significant airs, the company of young persons,
deserted by their scandalized seniors, had converted the magnificent suite
of drawing-rooms into a carnival theatre. Parties of three and four were
junketing in corners; laughing servants rushed to and fro as in a _cafe_;
the lounges were occupied by reclining beauties or languid fops
overpowered with wine, about whom lovely young women, flushed with
Champagne and mischief, were coquetting and frolicking.

"I warrant you, these people know it is our last night," said Dalton; "and
see what a use they make of us! Denslow's rich wines poured away like
water; everything soiled, smeared, and overturned; our entertainment, at
first stately and gracious as a queen's drawing-room, ending, with the
loss of _prestige_, in the riot of a _bal masque_. So fades ambition! But
to this duke."

Denslow, who had passed into the polite stage of inebriation, evident to
close observers, had arranged a little exclusive circle, which included
three women of fashionable reputation, his wife, the Duke, Jeffrey Lethal,
and Adonais. Reve de Noir officiated as attendant. The _fauteuils_ and
couches were disposed around a pearl table, on which were liquors, coffee,
wines, and a few delicacies for Honoria, who had not supped. They were in
the purple recess adjoining the third drawing-room. Adonais talked with
the Duke about Italy; Lethal criticized; while Honoria, in the full
splendor of her beauty, outshining and overpowering, dropped here and
there a few musical words, like service-notes, to harmonize.

There is no beauty like the newly-enamored. Dal