Others who had wearied of the party drifted down to this recess of peace.  An elderly Frenchman with a pointed black beard, and a slim, fair English boy with tears on his long eyelashes, sat themselves down in two of these great chairs, with a bottle of wine at their feet and one glass, from which they drank alternately with an effect of exchanging vows, while the boy whimpered some confession, sobbing that it would all never have happened if he had still been with Father Errington of the Sacred Heart in Liverpool, and the older man repeated paternally, mystically, and yet with a purring satisfaction, “Little one, do not grieve.  It is always thus when one forgets the Church.”

There came later another Frenchman, a fat and very drunken banker, who sat down at his right and complained from time to time of the lack of elegance in this debauchery.  He wished that these people had left him alone, and stared at the wall in front of him, where curtains of crimson brocade and gold galoon hung undrawn between the lustred tiles and the high windows, black with the outer night but streaked and oiled with reflections of the inner feast.  Opposite there hung a Bouguereau, which irritated him—­nymphs ought not to look as if they had come newly unguented from a cabinet de toilette.  Below it stood an immense Cloisonne vase, about the neck of which was tied a scarlet silk stocking.  He remembered having seen it there on his last visit six months before.  She must have been an exceptionally careless lady.  Out here there were many ladies who were careless of their honour, but most of them were careful enough about tangible possessions like silk stockings.  A fresh outburst in the babel at the other end of the room did not make him turn round, though the French banker had cried in an ecstasy, “Tiens! c’est atroce!” and had bounded up the hall.  He sat on, hating this ugly place of his delay, while the Frenchman and the boy kept up an insincere, voluptuous whisper about God and the comfort of the Mass....

At last he rose to his feet.  It was a quarter to twelve, and time for him to go.  He went up the hall, treading on lobster claws and someone’s wig, and looking about him for a certain person.  He could not see him among the group of revellers that stood in the space before the large folding-doors, and for a minute a hand closed over his heart as he feared that for once the person whom he sought had gone home before morning.  But presently he saw a long chair by the wall, and on its cushions a blotched face and a gross, full body.  He bent over the chair and whispered, “De Rojas, de Rojas!” But the fat man slept.  Hatred gushed up in him, and a joy that the night was secure, and he passed on to the folding-doors.  But from the little group that was gathered round the table, which before the dinner had supported the Winged Victory that now lay spread-eagled on the floor, there stepped Pessoa.  He bade him good-night and thanked him for a riotous evening, but perceived that Pessoa was waving a cocked revolver at him and saying something about Leonore.  What could he be saying?  It appeared incredible, even to-night, that he should really be saying that every departing guest must kiss Leonore’s back and swear that it was the most beautiful back in Brazil.