For a quarter of an hour we shouted at intervals.  Then Jonah took the other lamp and returned to the gate.  He did not reappear for ten minutes, and we were beginning to give him up, when to our relief he opened the door.

“No good,” he said curtly.  “We’d better get on.  He’s probably gone home.”

“I suppose he’s all right,” said Daphne, in some uneasiness.

“You can’t come to any harm on foot,” said I.  “Everything’s going dead slow for its own sake.  And when I last heard him, he was having the time of his life.  Incidentally, as like as not, he’ll strike a car that’s going to the Ball and ask for a lift.”

“I expect he will,” said Jill.  “There must be any amount on the way.”

“All right,” said my sister.  “Tell Fitch to carry on.”

Twenty minutes later that good helmsman set us down at the main entrance to the Albert Hall.

* * * * *

The conditions prevailing within that edifice suggested that few, if any, ticket-holders had been deterred from attending by the conditions prevailing without.  The boxes were full, the floor was packed, the corridors were thronged with eager shining revellers, dancing and strolling and chattering to beat the band, which was flooding every corner of the enormous building with an air of gaiety so infectious that even the staid Jonah began to grumble that the dance would be over before the girls emerged from the cloakroom.

The Field of the Cloth of Gold cannot have presented a more splendid spectacle.  True, there was nothing of the pageant about the function, neither were Pomp and Chivalry among the guests.  But Grace was there, and Ease and Artlessness, lending the scene that warmth and life and verity which Form and Ceremony do not allow.

The utter hopelessness of encountering my lady of the limousine was so apparent that I relegated a ridiculous notion which I had been harbouring to the region of things impossible, and determined to think about it no more.  For all that, I occasionally found myself scanning the crowd of strangers and wondering whether there was one amongst them whose voice I knew.  It was during one of these lapses that I heard my name.

“Who have you lost?” asked Maisie Dukedom, all radiant as a gold shepherdess.

“Dance with me,” said I, “and I’ll tell you.”

She glanced at a tiny wrist-watch.

“I promised I wouldn’t stay more than an hour,” she said, “and I ought to be going.  But I want to thank you for that beautiful rug.  If I give you the next, will you get the car for me as soon as it’s over?”

“If you must go.”

She nodded, and we pushed off into the rapids.

“And now, who is it?” she demanded.

“I thought you were going to thank me for the rug.”

She made a little grimace of impatience.

“The best way I can thank you is to tell you the truth.  Jack and I went to buy a rug at Lucifer’s.”