The grounds were lovely in the balmy atmosphere of a July night, the river gliding with mysterious motion under the stars, great masses of gloom darkening the stream with an almost awful look where the woods of Petersham and Ham House cast their dense shadows on the water.  Don Gomez and his companion wandered by the river side to a spot where a group of magnolias sheltered them from the open lawn, and where there were some rustic chairs close to the balustrade which protected the parapet.  In this spot, which was a kind of island, divided from the rest of the grounds by the intervening road, they found themselves quite alone, and in the midst of a summer stillness which was broken only by the low, lazy ripple of the tide running seawards.  The lights of Richmond looked far away, and the little town with its variety of levels had an Italian air in the distance.

From the ballroom, faint and fitful, came the music of a waltz.

‘I’m afraid I’ve brought you too far,’ said Don Gomez.

’On the contrary, it is a relief to get away from the lights and the people.  How delicious this river is!  I was brought up on the shores of a lake; but after all a lake is horribly tame.  Its limits are always staring one in the face.  There is no room for one’s imagination to wander.  Now a river like this suggests an infinity of possibilities, drifting on and on and on into undiscovered regions, by ever-varying shores.  I feel to-night as if I should like to step into that little boat yonder,’ pointing to a light skiff bobbing gently up and down with the tide, at the bottom of a flight of steps, ’and let the stream take me wherever it chose.’

‘If I could but go with you,’ said Gomez, in that deep and musical tone which made the commonest words seem melody, ’I would ask for neither compass nor rudder.  What could it matter whither the boat took me?  There is no place under the stars which would not be a paradise—­with you.’

‘Please don’t make a dreamy aspiration the occasion for a compliment,’ exclaimed Lesbia, lightly.  ’What I said was so silly that I don’t wonder you thought it right to say something just a little sillier.  But moonlight and running water have a curious effect upon me; and I, who am the most prosaic among women, become ridiculously sentimental.’

‘I cannot believe that you are prosaic.’

’I assure you it is perfectly true.  I am of the earth, earthy; a woman of the world, in my first season, ambitious, fond of pleasure, vain, proud, exacting, all those things which I am told a woman ought not to be.’

’You pain me when you so slander yourself; and I shall make it the business of my life to find out how much truth there is in that self-slander.  For my own part I do not believe a word of it; but as it is rude to contradict a lady I will only say that I reserve my opinion.’

‘Are you to stay long in England?’ asked Lesbia.

She was leaning against the stone balustrade in a careless attitude, as of one who was weary, her elbow on the stone slab, and her head thrown hack against her arm.  The white satin gown, moulded to her figure, had a statuesque air, and she looked like a marble statue in the dim light, every line of the graceful form expressive of repose.