Next day Dawkins was to leave, and the day after that the flat was to be the scene of a small sale.  The chief valuables, a few good pictures, and some very rare china, had already gone to Christie’s.  The delicate pate of his beloved vases had seemed to respond to the lingering farewell touch of the connoisseur’s fingers.  Edmund was trying to secure for some of them homes where he might sometimes visit them, and one or two of his lady friends were persuading their husbands that these things ought to be bought for love of poor Edmund Grosse.  Edmund was quite ready to press a little on friendship of this sort, being fully conscious of its quality and its duration.  For the next few weeks he would be welcomed with enthusiasm—­and next year?

But all the same there was that subconscious sense of bracing air—­something like the sense of climax in reaching a Northern station on a very hot day.  We may be very hot, perhaps, at Carlisle or Edinburgh, but it is not the climate of Surrey.

Edmund mounted the stairs at Buckingham Palace with a certain unconscious dignity which melted into genial amusement at the sight of a pretty woman near him evidently whispering advice to a fair debutante.  The girl was not eighteen, and her whole figure expressed acute discomfort.

“Keep your veil out of the way,” her mother warned her.

“I’ve had two dreadful pulls already; I’m sure my feathers are quite crooked.  Oh! mother, there’s Sir Edmund Grosse; he will tell me whether they are crooked.  You never know.”

“I could see if you would let me get in front of you,” murmured her mother.

“But you can’t possibly in this crowd.  Oh! how d’ye do, Sir Edmund; have I kept my veil straight?”

“Charming,” said Edmund, with a low bow.  The child really looked very pretty, though rather like a little dairymaid dressed up for fun, and her long gloves slipped far enough from the shoulders to show some splendidly red arms.

“Charming,” he said again in a half-teasing voice.  “Only I don’t approve of such late hours for children.”

It amused him that this was one of the presentations that would be most noted in the papers, and this funny, jolly little girl would probably gain a good deal of knowledge and lose a great deal more of charm in the next three months.

Walking by the mother and daughter, he had come close to the open doors of a long gallery, and stood for a moment to take in the picture.  It was not new to him, but perhaps he felt inclined to the attitude of an onlooker to-night, and there was something in this attitude slightly aloof and independent.  Brilliant was the one word for the scene; a little hard, perhaps, in colouring, and the women in their plumes and veils were too uniform to be artistic.  There was too much gold, too much red silk, too many women in the long rows waiting with more or less impatience or nervousness to get through with it.  The scene