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 made 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.