he might have been seen pacing to
and fro with stately splendour, contemplating the dais erected for
royalty at one end of the room, and thinking with a glow of
satisfaction that the representative of the Purlings had at last come
to her own. At this supreme moment she was grateful to dear Phillipa
and to Gilbert little less dear.

Then guests began to pour in. Where was Phillipa? Very late; she might
have dressed earlier. A servant was sent to call her, and Phillipa,
hurrying down, met Gilly on the upper floor coming out of Mrs.
Purling's bedroom.

"What have you been doing there?" she asked.

"Mrs. Purling wanted a fan," said Gilly readily.

She might want one fan, but hardly two; and had Phillipa been less
flurried she might have noticed that Mrs. Purling had one already in
her hand. But then their Royal Highnesses arrived; the heiress made
her curtsey for the first time in her life, was graciously received,
and the hour of her apotheosis had actually come. Presently the crowd
became so dense that every inch of space was covered; people
overflowed on to the landings, and sat four or five deep upon the
stairs. Dancing was simply impossible; however, hundreds of couples
went through the form. Phillipa, as in duty bound, remained in the
thick of the _melee_, but Gilly had very early disappeared. He
preferred the card-room; his waltzing days were over, he said. He was
playing; it was not very good taste, but there were some men who
preferred a quiet rubber to looking at princes or the antics of boys
and girls, and he wished to oblige his friends.

"Can you give me a moment, Le Grice?" said Lord Camberwell, coming
into the card-room. "I have had a most extraordinary letter. It
accuses Gilly Jillingham--"

"God bless my soul," cried old Colonel Le Grice, "a letter of the same
sort has been sent to me!"

"Have you had any suspicion that he played unfairly?"

"Not the slightest; I know he always holds the most surprising hands,
that he plays for very high stakes, that he nearly always wins--"

"Is he winning now?"

Of course. Mr. Jillingham's luck never deserted him. He was trying now
perhaps to make at one coup sufficient to silence for a further space
his enemy's tongue; the bets upon the odd trick alone amounted to a
thousand or more. But he was too late. His hour had come.

Suddenly Lord Camberwell spoke in a loud peremptory voice:

"Stop! Mr. Jillingham is cheating. He does it in the deal. I have
watched