If you want me I'll
stay, of course; but if you don't, I'll go down to the club.'

'How can I say, yet? You needn't mind the club to-night.'

'All right;--only it's a bore being here alone.'

Then Miss Longestaffe asked what 'was up.' 'Is there any doubt about
our going to-night?'

'I can't say. I'm so harassed that I don't know what I'm about. There
seems to be a report that the Emperor won't be there.'

'Impossible!'

'It's all very well to say impossible, my dear,' said Lady Monogram;
'but still that's what people are saying. You see Mr Melmotte is a
very great man, but perhaps--something else has turned up, so that
he may be thrown over. Things of that kind do happen. You had better
finish dressing. I shall. But I shan't make sure of going till I hear
that the Emperor is there.' Then she descended to her husband, whom
she found forlornly consoling himself with a cigar. 'Damask,' she
said, 'you must find out.'

'Find out what?'

'Whether the Prince and the Emperor are there.'

'Send John to ask,' suggested the husband.

'He would be sure to make a blunder about it. If you'd go yourself
you'd learn the truth in a minute. Have a cab,--just go into the hall
and you'll soon know how it all is;--I'd do it in a minute if I were
you.' Sir Damask was the most good-natured man in the world, but he
did not like the job. 'What can be the objection?' asked his wife.

'Go to a man's house and find out whether a man's guests are come
before you go yourself! I don't just see it, Ju.'

'Guests! What nonsense! The Emperor and all the Royal Family! As if it
were like any other party. Such a thing, probably, never happened
before, and never will happen again. If you don't go, Damask, I must;
and I will.' Sir Damask, after groaning and smoking for half a minute,
said that he would go. He made many remonstrances. It was a confounded
bore. He hated emperors and he hated princes. He hated the whole box
and dice of that sort of thing! He 'wished to goodness' that he had
dined at his club and sent word up home that the affair was to be off.
But at last he submitted and allowed his wife to leave the room with
the intention of sending for a cab. The cab was sent for and
announced, but Sir Damask would not stir till he had finished his big
cigar.

It was past ten when he left his own house. On arriving in Grosvenor
Square he could at once see that the party was going on. The house was
illuminated. There was a concourse of serva