When he turned into the corridor Geraldine’s maid, seated in the window-seat sewing, rose and came forward to take his message.  In a few moments she returned, saying: 

“Miss Seagrave asks to be excused, as she is ready to retire.”

“Ask Miss Seagrave if I can say good-night to her through the door.”

The maid disappeared and returned in a moment.

“Miss Seagrave wishes you good-night, sir.”

So he thanked the maid pleasantly and walked to his own room, now once more prepared for him after the departure of those who had temporarily required it.

Starlight made the leaded windows brilliant; he opened them wide and leaned out on the sill, arms folded.  The pale astral light illuminated a fairy world of meadow and garden and spectral trees, and two figures moving like ghosts down by the fountain among the roses—­Rosalie and Grandcourt pacing the gravel paths shoulder to shoulder under the stars.

Below him, on the terrace, he saw Kathleen and Scott—­the latter carrying a butterfly net—­examining the borders of white pinks with a lantern.  In and out of the yellow rays swam multitudes of night moths, glittering like flakes of tinsel as the lantern light flashed on their wings; and Scott was evidently doing satisfactory execution, for every moment or two Kathleen uncorked the cyanide jar and he dumped into it from the folds of the net a fluttering victim.

“That last one is a Pandorus Sphinx!” he said in great excitement to Kathleen, who had lifted the big glass jar into the lantern light and was trying to get a glimpse of the exquisite moth, whose wings of olive green, rose, and bronze velvet were already beating a hazy death tattoo in the lethal fumes.

“A Pandorus!  Scott, you’ve wanted one so much!” she exclaimed, enchanted.

“You bet I have.  Pholus pandorus is pretty rare around here.  And I say, Kathleen, that wasn’t a bad net-stroke, was it?  You see I had only a second, and I took a desperate chance.”

She praised his skill warmly; then, as he stood admiring his prize in the jar which she held up, she suddenly caught him by the arm and pointed: 

“Oh, quick!  There is a hawk-moth over the pinks which resembles nothing we have seen yet!”

Scott very cautiously laid his net level, stole forward, shining the lantern light full on the darting, hazy-winged creature, which was now poised, hovering over a white blossom and probing the honeyed depths with a long, slim proboscis.

“I thought it might be only a Lineata, but it isn’t,” he said excitedly.  “Did you ever see such a timid moth?  The slightest step scares the creature.”

“Can’t you try a quick net-stroke sideways?”

Her voice was as anxious and unsteady as his own.

“I’m afraid I’ll miss.  Lord but it’s a lightning flier!  Where is it now?”

“Behind you.  Do be careful!  Turn very slowly.”