sed come upon him, hurried before him down the
corridor, his thoughts divided in their allegiance between the
delight of telling St. George what was toward, and the new and
alluring delight of seeing Antoinette Frothingham near at hand in
the banquet room. After all, he had had only the vaguest glimpse of
a little figure in rose and silver, and he doubted if he could tell
her from the princess, but for the interpreting gown.

Amory looked up with an irrepressible thrill of delight. He was just
at that moment crossing the high white audience-hall, the anteroom
to the Hall of Kings--he, Amory, in Tyrian purple garments. If
anything were needed to complete the picture it would be to meet
face to face, there in that big, lonely room, a little figure in
rose and silver. It made his heart beat even to think of the
possibilities of that situation. He skirted the Hall of Kings, and
stood in one of the archways of the colonnade, facing the banquet
room.

The banquet-table extended about three sides of the room, whose
centre the guests faced. The middle space was left pure, unvexed by
columns or furnishing. At the room's far end Amory glimpsed the
prince, at his side Olivia's white veil, and her women about her;
and, nearer, St. George and Balator in the place appointed. A guard
came to conduct him, and he crossed to his seat and sank down with
the look that could be made to mean whatever Amory meant.

"I expect to be served," murmured the journalist in him, "by
beautiful tame megatheriums, in sashes. And is that glyptodon
salad?"

St. George's eyes were upon the guests, so tranquilly seated, aware
of the hour.

"I fancy," he said in half-voice, "that presently we shall see
little flames issuing from their hair, as there used from the hair
of the ladies in Werner's ballets."

Then as Balator leaned toward him in his splendid leisure, fostering
his charm, there came an amazing interruption.

The low key of the room was electrically raised by a cry, loosed
from some other plight of being, like an odour of burning
encroaching upon a garden.

"Why have you not waited?" some one called, and the voice--clear,
equal, imperious--evened its way upon the air and reduced to itself
the soft speech of the others. Silence fell upon them all, and
their eyes were toward a figure standing in the open interval of the
room--a figure whose aspect thrilled St. George with sudden,
inexplicable emotion.

It was an old man, incredibly old,