’A boat, a boat, unto the ferry, For we’ll go over and be merry; And laugh, and quaff, and drink brown sherry!’

And suddenly the moon appeared, young and tender, floating up on her back from behind a tree; and as though she had breathed, the air was cooler, but down that cooler air came always the warm odour of the limes.

Over his cigar Dartie peered round at Bosinney, who was sitting with his arms crossed, staring straight in front of him, and on his face the look of a man being tortured.

And Dartie shot a glance at the face between, so veiled by the overhanging shadow that it was but like a darker piece of the darkness shaped and breathed on; soft, mysterious, enticing.

A hush had fallen on the noisy terrace, as if all the strollers were thinking secrets too precious to be spoken.

And Dartie thought:  ‘Women!’

The glow died above the river, the singing ceased; the young moon hid behind a tree, and all was dark.  He pressed himself against Irene.

He was not alarmed at the shuddering that ran through the limbs he touched, or at the troubled, scornful look of her eyes.  He felt her trying to draw herself away, and smiled.

It must be confessed that the man of the world had drunk quite as much as was good for him.

With thick lips parted under his well-curled moustaches, and his bold eyes aslant upon her, he had the malicious look of a satyr.

Along the pathway of sky between the hedges of the tree tops the stars clustered forth; like mortals beneath, they seemed to shift and swarm and whisper.  Then on the terrace the buzz broke out once more, and Dartie thought:  ‘Ah! he’s a poor, hungry-looking devil, that Bosinney!’ and again he pressed himself against Irene.

The movement deserved a better success.  She rose, and they all followed her.

The man of the world was more than ever determined to see what she was made of.  Along the terrace he kept close at her elbow.  He had within him much good wine.  There was the long drive home, the long drive and the warm dark and the pleasant closeness of the hansom cab—­with its insulation from the world devised by some great and good man.  That hungry architect chap might drive with his wife—­he wished him joy of her!  And, conscious that his voice was not too steady, he was careful not to speak; but a smile had become fixed on his thick lips.

They strolled along toward the cabs awaiting them at the farther end.  His plan had the merit of all great plans, an almost brutal simplicity he would merely keep at her elbow till she got in, and get in quickly after her.

But when Irene reached the cab she did not get in; she slipped, instead, to the horse’s head.  Dartie was not at the moment sufficiently master of his legs to follow.  She stood stroking the horse’s nose, and, to his annoyance, Bosinney was at her side first.  She turned and spoke to him rapidly, in a low voice; the words ‘That man’ reached Dartie.  He stood stubbornly by the cab step, waiting for her to come back.  He knew a trick worth two of that!