he baize door. Then
excitement got the better of prudence; and, tearing it open, I rushed
wildly across the hall and up the staircase, never pausing until I was
safe in my own room, with the door locked behind me and the unlighted
bed-room candle still clutched firmly in my hand.

II.

Now, having already mentioned that I am a person of regular and strictly
conventional habits, it will be readily believed that I viewed these
extraordinary proceedings with unmitigated disgust. It was not to
encounter horrid experiences like this that I had left my comfortable
town house, where draughts and midnight adventures were alike unknown.
Before I came down to breakfast on the following morning, I had
fabricated a long story about pressing business which necessitated my
immediate return to town. Though ordinarily of a truthful disposition, I
was prepared to solemnly aver that the success of an important lawsuit
depended on my presence in London within the next twelve hours. I did
not even shrink from the prospect of having to produce circumstantial
evidence to convince Maitland of the truth of my assertion. Anything
rather than undergo any further shocks to my nervous system.

Happily I was spared the necessity of perjuring myself to this extent.
When the breakfast bell rang, I descended and found that as usual very
few of the guests, had obeyed the summons. Mrs. Maitland was pouring out
tea quite undisturbed by this irregularity, for Longacres is a house
where attendance at the meals is never compulsory.

"And how have you slept?" she said, extending me a plump hand glittering
with rings. "We were afraid that perhaps you were a little overtired
last night, as you went off to bed in the middle of the singing.
Capital, wasn't it? Mr. Tucker is so very funny, and never in the least
vulgar with his jokes! Now some comic singers really forget that there
are girls in the room.--(Lily, my love, just go and see if your uncle is
coming down).--I assure you, Mr. Carew, I was staying in a country house
last year--mind, I give no names--where the songs were only fit for a
music-hall! It's perfectly true; even George said it made him feel quite
red to hear such things in a drawing-room. But, as I was saying, Mr.
Tucker is so different; such genuine humour, you know!"

It is impossible to conjecture how long my amiable hostess might have
rippled on in this strain if our conversation had not been interrupted
by the entry of Miss Latouche