“The man’s name is Rosario,” she replied.  “He is a financier and a man of fashion.  Another time you must tell me what you think of him, but I warn you that it will not be so easy as with those others, for he is also a man of schemes.  I am sorry, but I must send you in now with Mrs. Horsman, who is much too amiable to be anything else but dull.  You shall come with me and I will introduce you.”

Dinner was announced almost at that moment.  Arnold, keen to enjoy, with all the love of new places and the enthusiasm of youth in his veins, found every moment of the meal delightful.  They took their places at a round table with shaded lights artistically arranged, so that they seemed to be seated before a little oasis of flowers and perfumes in the midst of a land of shadows.  He found his companion pleasant and sympathetic.  She had a son about his age who was going soon into the city and about whom she talked incessantly.  On his left, Lady Blennington made frank attempts to engage him in conversation whenever an opportunity arose.  Arnold felt his spirits rise with every moment.  He laughed and talked the whole of the time, devoting himself with very little intermission to one or the other of his two neighbors.  Mr. Weatherley, who was exceedingly uncomfortable and found it difficult even to remember his few staple openings, looked across the table more than once in absolute wonder that this young man who, earning a wage of twenty-eight shillings a week, and occupying almost the bottom stool in his office, could yet be entirely and completely at his ease in this exalted company.  More than once Arnold caught his hostess’s eye, and each time he felt, for some unknown reason, a little thrill of pleasure at the faint relaxing of her lips, the glance of sympathy which shone across the roses.  Life was a good place, he thought to himself, for these few hours, at any rate.  And then, as he leaned back in his place for a moment, Ruth’s words seemed suddenly traced with a finger of fire upon the dim wall.  To-night was to be a night of mysteries.  To-night the great adventure was to be born.  He glanced around the table.  There was, indeed, an air of mystery about some of these guests, something curiously aloof, something which it was impossible to put into words.  The man Starling, for instance, seemed queerly placed here.  Count Sabatini was another of the guests who seemed somehow to be outside the little circle.  For minutes together he sat sometimes in grim silence.  About him, too, there was always a curious air of detachment.  Rosario was making the small conversation with his neighbor which the occasion seemed to demand, but he, too, appeared to talk as one who had more weighty matters troubling his brain.  It was a fancy of Arnold’s, perhaps, but it was a fancy of which he could not rid himself.  He glanced towards his employer and a curious feeling of sympathy stirred him.  The man was unhappy and ill at ease.  He had lost his air of slight pomposity, the air with which he