“I warrant you, these people know it is our last night,” said Dalton; “and see what a use they make of us!  Denslow’s rich wines poured away like water; everything soiled, smeared, and overturned; our entertainment, at first stately and gracious as a queen’s drawing-room, ending, with the loss of prestige, in the riot of a bal masque.  So fades ambition!  But to this duke.”

Denslow, who had passed into the polite stage of inebriation, evident to close observers, had arranged a little exclusive circle, which included three women of fashionable reputation, his wife, the Duke, Jeffrey Lethal, and Adonais.  Reve de Noir officiated as attendant.  The fauteuils and couches were disposed around a pearl table, on which were liquors, coffee, wines, and a few delicacies for Honoria, who had not supped.  They were in the purple recess adjoining the third drawing-room.  Adonais talked with the Duke about Italy; Lethal criticized; while Honoria, in the full splendor of her beauty, outshining and overpowering, dropped here and there a few musical words, like service-notes, to harmonize.

There is no beauty like the newly-enamored.  Dalton seemed to forget himself, as he contemplated her, for a moment.  Spaces had been left for us; the valet placed chairs.

“Dalton,” cried Lethal, “you are in time to decide a question of deep interest;—­your friend, De Vere, will assist you.  His Highness has given preference to the women of America over those of Italy.  Adonais, the exquisite and mild, settles his neck-tie against the Duke, and objects in that bland but firm manner which is his.  I am the Duke’s bottle-holder; Denslow and wife accept that function for the chivalrous Adonais.”

“I am of the Duke’s party,” replied Dalton, in his most agreeable manner.  “To be in the daily converse and view of the most beautiful women in America, as I have been for years, is a privilege in the cultivation of a pure taste.  I saw nothing in Italy, except on canvas, comparable with what I see at this moment.  The Duke is right; but in commending his judgment, I attribute to him also sagacity.  Beauty is like language; its use is to conceal.  One may, under rose-colored commendations, a fine manner, and a flowing style, conceal, as Nature does with personal advantages in men, the gross tastes and vulgar cunning of a charlatan.”

Dalton, in saying this, with a manner free from suspicion or excitement, fixed his eyes upon the Duke’s.

“You seem to have no faith in either men or women,” responded the rich barytone voice of his Highness, the dark upper lip disclosing, as before, the row of square, sharp, ivory teeth.

“Little, very little,” responded Dalton, with a sigh.  “Your Highness will understand me,—­or if not now, presently.”

Lethal trod upon Adonais’s foot; I saw him do it.  Adonais exchanged glances with a brilliant hawk-faced lady who sat opposite.  The lady smiled and touched her companion.  Honoria, who saw everything, opened her magnificent eyes to their full extent.  Denslow was oblivious.