ng to
parties and early people going home, horses slipping and sliding on
stones or wood, half the roadway up, and luminous with lanterns. They
stopped in front of the Haute Gomme, where they picked up Sir George
Kirkbank and Colonel Delville, a big man with a patriarchal head,
supposed to be one of the finest whist players in London, and to make a
handsome income by his play. He had ridden in the Balaclava charge, was
a favourite everywhere, and, albeit no genius, was much cleverer than
his friend and school-fellow, George Kirkbank. They had been at Eton
together, had both made love to the lively Georgie, and had been
inseparables for the last thirty years.

'Couldn't get on without Delville,' said Sir George; 'dooced smart
fellow, sir. Knows the ropes; and does all the thinking for both of us.'

And now they were fairly started, and the team fell into a rattling
pace, with the road pretty clear before them. Hyde Park was one
umbrageous darkness, edged by long lines of golden light. Coolness and
silence enfolded all things in the summer midnight, and Lesbia, not
prone to romance, sank into a dreamy state of mind, as she leaned back
in her seat and watched the shadowy trees glide by, the long vista of
lamps and verdure in front of her. She was glad that no one talked to
her, for talk of any kind must have broken the spell. Don Gomez sat like
a statue in his place behind her. From Lady Kirkbank, the loquacious,
came a gentle sound of snoring, a subdued, ladylike snore, breathed
softly at intervals, like a sigh. Mr. Smithson had his team, and his own
thoughts, too, for occupation,--thoughts which to-night were not
altogether pleasant.

At the back of the coach Mrs. Mostyn was descanting on the evolution of
the nautilus, and the relationship of protoplasm and humanity, to
Colonel Delville, who sat smiling placidly behind an immense cigar, and
accepted the most stupendous facts and the most appalling theories with
a friendly little nod of his handsome head.

Mr. Mostyn frankly slept, as it was his custom to do upon all convenient
occasions. He called it recuperating.

'Frank ought to be delightfully fresh, for he recuperated all the way
down,' said his wife, when they alighted in the dewy garden at
Twickenham, in front of the lamp-lit portico.

'I wouldn't have minded his recuperating if he hadn't snored so
abominably,' remarked Colonel Delville.

It was nearly one o'clock, and the ball had thinned a little, which m