ade
it all the better for those who remained. Mr. Smithson's orders had been
given two days ago, and the very best of the waiters had been told off
for his especial service. The ladies went upstairs to take off their
wrappings and mufflings, and Lesbia emerged dazzling from her brown
velvet Newmarket, while Lady Kirkbank, bending closely over the
looking-glass, like a witch over a caldron, repaired her complexion with
cotton wool.

They went through the conservatory to the octagon dining-room, where the
supper was ready, a special supper, on a table by a window, a table
laden with exotics and brilliant with glass and silver. The supper was,
of course, perfect in its way. Mr. Smithson's _chef_ had been down to
see about it, and Mr. Smithson's own particular champagne and the claret
grown in his own particular _clos_ in the Gironde, had been sent down
for the feast. No common cuisine, no common wine could be good enough;
and yet there was a day when the cheapest gargote in Belleville or
Montmartre was good enough for Mr. Smithson. There had been days on
which he did not dine at all, and when the fumes of a _gibelotte_
steaming from a workman's restaurant made his mouth water.

The supper was all life and gaiety. Everyone was hungry and thirsty, and
freshioned by the drive, except Lesbia. She was singularly silent, ate
hardly anything, but drank three or four glasses of champagne.

Don Gomez was not a great talker. He had the air of a prince of the
blood royal, who expects other people to talk and to keep him amused,
But the little he said was to the point. He had a fine baritone, very
low and subdued, and had a languor which was almost insolent, but not
without its charm. There was an air of originality about the manner and
the man.

He was the typical _rastaquouere_, a man of finished manners, and
unknown antecedents, a foreigner, apparently rich, obviously
accomplished, but with that indefinable air which bespeaks the
adventurer; and which gives society as fair a warning as if the man wore
a placard on his shoulder with the word _cave_.

But to Lesbia this Spaniard was the first really interesting man she had
met since she saw John Hammond; and her interest in him was much more
vivid than her interest in Hammond had been at the beginning of their
acquaintance. That pale face, with its tint of old ivory, those thin,
finely-cut lips, indicative of diabolical craft, could she but read
aright, those unfathomable eyes,