“You brought the happiness with you,” Lord Arranmore said, “and you take it away with you.  Enton will be a very dull place when you are gone.

“Your own stay here is nearly up, is it not?” Lady Caroom asked.  “Very nearly.  I expect to go to Paris next week—­at latest the week after, in time at any rate for Bernhardt’s new play.  So I suppose we shall soon all be scattered over the face of the earth.”

“Except me,” Brooks interposed, ruefully.  “I shall be the one who will do the vegetating.”

Lady Caroom laughed softly.

“Foolish person!  You will be within two hours of London.  You none of you have the slightest idea as to the sort of place we are going to.  We are a day’s journey from anywhere.  The morning papers are twenty-four hours late.  The men drink port wine, and the women sit round the fire in the drawing-room after dinner and wait—­and wait—­and wait.  Oh, that awful waiting.  I know it so well.  And it isn’t much better when the men do come.  They play whist instead of bridge, and a woman in the billiard-room is a lost soul.  Our hostess always hides my cue directly I arrive, and pretends that it has been lost.  By the bye, what a dear little room this is, Arranmore.  We haven’t dined here before, have we?”

Lord Arranmore shook his head.  He held up his wineglass thoughtfully as though criticizing the clearness of the amber fluid.

“No!” he said.  “I ordered dinner to be served in here because over our dessert I propose to offer you a novel form of entertainment.”

“How wonderful,” Sybil said.  “Will it be very engrossing?  Will it help us to forget?”

He looked at her with a smile.

“That depends,” he said, “how anxious you are to forget.”

She looked hastily away.  For a moment Brooks met her eyes, and his heart gave an unusual leap.  Lady Caroom watched them both thoughtfully, and then turned to their host.

“You have excited our curiosity, Arranmore.  You surely don’t propose to keep us on tenterhooks all through dinner?”

“It will give a fillip to your appetite.”

“My appetite needs no fillip.  It is disgraceful to try and make me eat more than I do already.  I am getting hideously stout.  I found my maid in tears to-night because I positively could not get into my most becoming bodice.”

“If you possess a more becoming one than this,” Lord Arranmore said, with a bow, “it is well for our peace of mind that you cannot wear it.”

“That is a very pretty subterfuge, but a subterfuge it remains,” Lady Caroom answered.  “Now be candid.  I love candour.  What are you going to do to amuse us?”

He shook his head.

“Do not spoil my effect.  The slightest hint would make everything seem tame.  Brooks, I insist upon it that you try my Johannesburg.  It was given to my grandfather by the Grand Duke of Shleistein.  Groves!”

Brooks submitted willingly enough, for the wine was wonderful.  Sybil leaned over so that their heads almost touched.