good enough was seated on the corner of a table till some younger and less gorgeous lady could be made to give way.  And the Marchioness was declaring she was as wet through as though she had been dragged in a river.  Mrs Boncassen was so absolutely quelled as to have retired into the kitchen attached to the summer-house.  Mr Boncassen, with all his country’s pluck and pride, was proving to a knot of gentlemen round him on the verandah, that such treachery in the weather was a thing unknown in his happier country.  Miss Boncassen had to do her best to console the splashed ladies.  ’Oh Mrs Jones, is it not a pity!  What can I do for you?’

’We must bear it, my dear.  It often does rain, but why on this special day should it come down in buckets?’

‘I never was so wet in all my life,’ said Dolly Longstaff, poking in his head.

‘There’s somebody smoking,’ said the Countess angrily.  There was a crowd of men smoking out on the verandah.  ’I never knew anything so nasty,’ the Countess continued, leaving it in doubt whether she spoke of the rain, or the smoke, or the party generally.

Damp gauzes, splashed stockings, trampled muslins, and features which have perhaps known something of rouge and certainly encountered something of rain may be made, but can only, by supreme high breeding, be made compatible with good-humour.  To be moist, muddy, rumpled and smeared, when by the very nature of your position it is your duty to be clear-starched up to the pellucidity of crystal, to be spotless as the lily, to be crisp as the ivy-leaf, and as clear in complexion as a rose,—­is it not, O gentle readers, felt to be a disgrace?  It came to pass, therefore, that many were now very cross.  Carriages were ordered under the idea that some improvement might be made at the inn which was nearly a mile distant.  Very few, however, had their own carriages, and there was jockeying for the vehicles.  In the midst of all this Silverbridge remained near to Miss Boncassen as circumstances would admit.  ‘You are not waiting for me,’ she said.

‘Yes I am.  We might as well go up to town together.’

’Leave me with father and mother.  Like the captain of a ship, I must be the last to leave the wreck.’

’But I’ll be the gallant sailor of the day, who always at the risk of his life sticks to the skipper to the last moment.’

’Not at all;—­just because there will be no gallantry.  But come and see us tomorrow and find out whether we have got through it alive.’

CHAPTER 33

The Langham Hotel

‘What an abominable climate,’ Mrs Boncassen had said when they were quite alone at Maidenhead.

’My dear, you didn’t think you were going to bring New York along with you when you came here,’ replied her husband.

‘I wish I was going back tomorrow.’

’That’s a foolish thing to say.  People here are very kind, and you are seeing a great deal more of the world than you would ever see at home.  I am having a very good time.  What do you say, Bell?’