Mr. Samuel, a commercial gentleman who had got stuck somehow or other at the Alpha and Omega Club, cast a practised eye over the wines, chaud-froids, fruits, salads, ices, the lanterns and other joys of the evening and announced, after a rough computation, that Keith’s outlay for that little show must have run well into three figures.  Mr. White agreed, adding that it did one good to get a mouthful of drinkable fizz after Parker’s poison.

“Ah, but you ought to try the punch.”

“Come on then,” said White.

They moved away and soon stumbled upon a cluster of bibulous mortals in their element.  Miss Wilberforce was there.  She liked to linger near the fountain-head; the fountain-head, on this occasion, being a cyclopean bowl of iced punch.  The lady was in grand condition; festive, playful, positively flirtatious.  She nibbled, between her libations, at a savoury biscuit (she hated solid food, as a rule) in order, she said, to staunch her thirst; she told everybody that it was her birthday.  Yes, her birthday!  In fact, she was quite a different creature from the bashful visitor at the Duchess’s entertainment; she was hardly shy at all.

“Punch and moonlight!” she was saying.  “It’s all as right as rain—­birthday or no birthday.”

Miss Wilberforce had about forty birthdays in the year, each of them due to be worthily celebrated like this one.

It was a sad and scandalous business.  Better things might have been expected of her.  She was so obviously a lady.  She had been so nicely brought up.  While there was still an English Church on the island, she never failed to attend Divine Service, despite her Sunday headache.  She was often the only member of the congregation—­she and Mr. Freddy Parker, whose official dignity and English origin, however questionable his Christianity, constrained him to put in an appearance.  Mortal enemies, they used to sit on opposite pews, glaring across the vacant building to see if they could catch each other asleep, responding at irregular intervals out of sheer cussedness, and trying vainly to feel more charitable during those moments when the scraggy young curate—­generally some social failure who raked together a few pounds from these hazardous continental engagements—­recited the Gospel according to Saint John.  Those days were over.  She was definitely on the downward grade.  Three members of the Club and two Russian apostles were even then engaged in tossing up who should have the privilege of seeing her home.  The lot fell to Mr. Richards, the excellent Vice-President, an elderly gentleman whose carefully parted hair and flowing beard made him the very picture of respectability.  To look at him, one would have said that the dear lady could not be in better hands.