ore one at Newmarket.' He said the _King_ could afford it.
Cheek! Sylvia, I say, you _are_ all right! I'm going down."

Suddenly remembering his broken heart, Savile paused at the door, caught
Felicity's eye, and sighed with an effort, heavily. Then, with his usual
air of polite self-restraint, out of proportion to the occasion, he left
the room.

Soon the White Viennese Band was tuning up, and the house, which was
built like a large bungalow, decorated all over with crimson rambler
rosebuds, looked very gay and charming. Sir James beamed as various
names, more or less well known in various worlds, were incorrectly
announced. Felicity went into a small room that had been arranged for
conversation to see through the window that the garden had been
artistically darkened for the occasion.

In the room were several men. Roy Beaumont the young inventor with his
calm face and inscrutable air was looking up as he spoke to De Valdez,
the famous composer. Roy Beaumont wore minute boot-buttons on his cuffs
and shirt front.

De Valdez (more difficult to secure at a party than a Prime Minister)
was a very handsome, unaffected, genial man who, though an Englishman,
had much of the Spanish grandee in his manner and bearing. He had a
great contempt for the smaller amenities of dress, and his thick curling
hair made more noticeable his likeness to the portraits of Byron.

Felicity at once said, as if in great anxiety--

"You _mustn't_ call me a Marquise of the olden time! Will you?" She
smiled at the composer as Roy Beaumont went upstairs, leaving Felicity
to begin the evening by trying the room with De Valdez.

Comparatively early, and quite suddenly, the rooms were crowded on the
usual principle that no one will arrive till every one is there. They
were filled with that inaudible yet loud chatter and the uncomfortable
throng which is the one certain sign that a party is a success. The
incorrect labelling of celebrities seemed to be an even more entrancing
occupation than flirting to the strains of the Viennese Band. A young
girl with red hair and eager eye-glasses, who had never in her life left
Kensington, except to go to Earl's Court, entreated a dark animated
young man who had just been introduced to her, but whose name she did
not catch, to "sit down quietly and tell her all about everybody."

He amiably complied.

"That," he said, "that man with the white beard is Henry Arthur James.
He writes all those books that no o