After supper he found himself listening to the band in the garden with a sentimental young lady, who made him fully conversant with her adoration of moonlit nights, waltzing, the latest tenor, and the scenery of Switzerland.

It was already growing late, and people had begun to leave, when it struck him that, through no active fault of his own, other than a certain complaisant indolence, he had as yet exchanged only the briefest of greetings with Lady Garnett, while of Miss Masters only a glimpse had been vouchsafed to him, at the further end of the crowded supper-room.  He wandered into the studio, where a little, intimate party had assembled around an easel, and he was fortunate enough in a few minutes to find himself invited to take possession of a vacant seat precisely by Mary’s side.

“Oh, you wicked person!” said Mary reproachfully.  “Why do you never come to see us? and where have you been hiding yourself all the evening?”

Rainham laughed gently.

“I feel rather guilty, I own; but you know there is an execrable proverb which says, ‘Duty first, and pleasure afterwards.’  I have been living up to it, that’s all.  If you only knew how I have been longing to talk to somebody who wouldn’t ask me whether the music didn’t fill me with a passionate desire to dance!  And how good it is to be with a person who doesn’t ask you whether you play much lawn-tennis, or whether you prefer London to the country on the whole.  Ah, Mary!  I consider myself a model of self-denial; but I am rewarded now.”

“That’s rather pretty for you,” answered the girl approvingly; “and you are forgiven, though you have still to make your peace with Aunt Marcelle.  Tell me what you have been doing, and what you have been reading....”

The conversation drifted on, now and again becoming general, and including the rest of the circle, but always recurring and narrowing into the deeper stream of their old intimacy.

“You are the only really satisfactory people I know,” he said presently—­“the only people who know how to enjoy life, so far as it is to be enjoyed.”

“You mustn’t give me any credit for it; it’s all Aunt Marcelle’s doing.  But I don’t think I know what you mean exactly.  Perhaps we oughtn’t to feel flattered?”

“I mean, you are the only people who understand that happiness doesn’t depend on what one does or doesn’t do—­that it all depends on the point of view.”

“The way of looking at life generally?” she hazarded.

“Precisely.  True philosophy only admits one point of view—­from outside.  Aren’t we always being told that life is only a play?  Well, we clever people are the spectators, the audience.  We look at the play from a comfortable seat in the stalls; and when the curtain drops at the end, we go home quietly and—­sleep.”

Mary looked at him for a moment silently.

“I’m not at all sure that we ought to feel flattered!  You consider that you and I and her ladyship are spectators, then.  Isn’t it very selfish?”