And the Colonel, who was not a dancing man, was left in not unwelcome solitude to reflect somewhat ponderously on the advantages of possessing a nephew and niece young enough, brilliant enough, and rich enough—­though that was partly his affair—­to cultivate the very pink and perfection of smart society.  He regarded Dick in the light of a profitable investment.

When the young people, so to speak, came to the rescue of the avuncular hulk, it was already beginning to drift into the corner of the harbour devoted to derelicts.

The friends who had developed about his path in such flattering numbers when he came home from India, and retired, with a newly-acquired fortune and a vague halo of military distinction about his person, into the ranks of the half-paid, were beginning to find him rather old and, frankly, a considerable bore; but the timely benevolence which he had extended to his nephew was, it appeared, to have its reward in this world in the shape of a kind of reflected rejuvenescence, a temporary respite from the limbo of (how he hated the word!) fogeydom.

When Dick married, his uncle was already settling down in a narrow groove among the people of yesterday; now he felt that he had once more established his foothold among the people of to-day.

Presently he noticed that Lady Dulminster had arrived, and he made his way across the room to meet her with a quite youthful bashfulness, cannoning apologetically against Romeos and Marguerites, hoping that she would like his uniform.

There was one person, at least, in the room who made no attempt to assure herself that she was enjoying the vivid gaiety of these parti-coloured revels.

Mary Masters, when she had time for solitary thought, found that the atmosphere of the charming room was full of mockery.  For her, the passionate vibrations of the strained, incessant strings seemed to breathe the wild complaint of lost souls; the multitudinous tread of gliding feet, the lingering sweep of silken skirts, the faint, sweet perfume of exotic flowers, all had a new and strange significance; the effect of an orchestral fugue wearily repeating the expression of a frenzied heartlessness, a great unrest.

The girl was completely unstrung.  Since Charles had brought her news, which, after all, had been merely a corroboration, her nerves had played her false; the balance of her mind was thrown out of poise; and the fact that she was there at all seemed only a part of her failing, an additional proof of her moral collapse.

Seated on a low ottoman, in a little recess among the tall palms and tree-ferns, which lined the passage leading from the ball-room to the studio, she was startled presently from her reverie by Mrs. Lightmark, who confronted her, a dainty figure in the pale rose colour and apple-green of one of Watteau’s most unpractical shepherdesses.

“Not dancing, Mary!” she protested, smiling a little languidly.  “What does it mean?  Why are you sitting in stately solitude with such an evident contempt for our frivolity?”