the river.  A large electric launch was moored at the quay.  The grounds outside were dimly illuminated with cunningly-hidden electric lights shining through purple-coloured globes into the cloudy darkness.  In the background, enveloping the whole of the house and reaching to the river on either side, the great wall loomed up, unlit, menacing almost in its suggestions.  A couple of loiterers stood within a few yards of them, looking at the launch.

“There she is, ready for her errand, whatever it may be,” one said to the other curiously.  “We couldn’t play the stowaway, I suppose, could we?”

“Dicky Bell did that once,” the other answered.  “Sir Timothy has only one way with intruders.  He was thrown into the river and jolly nearly drowned.”

The two men passed out of hearing.

“I wonder what part the launch plays in the night’s entertainment,” Wilmore observed.

Francis shrugged his shoulders.

“I have given up wondering,” he said.  “Margaret, do you hear that music?”

She laughed.

“Are we really to dance?” she murmured.  “Do you want to make a girl of me again?”

“Well, I shouldn’t be a magician, should I?” he answered.

They passed into the ballroom and danced for some time.  The music was seductive and perfect, without any of the blatant notes of too many of the popular orchestras.  The floor seemed to sway under their feet.

“This is a new joy come back into life!” Margaret exclaimed, as they rested for a moment.

“The first of many,” he assured her.

They stood in the archway between the winter-garden and the dancing-gallery, from which they could command a view of the passing crowds.  Francis scanned the faces of the men and women with intense interest.  Many of them were known to him by sight, others were strangers.  There was a judge, a Cabinet Minister, various members of the aristocracy, a sprinkling from the foreign legations, and although the stage was not largely represented, there were one or two well-known actors.  The guests seemed to belong to no universal social order, but to Francis, watching them almost eagerly, they all seemed to have something of the same expression, the same slight air of weariness, of restless and unsatisfied desires.

“I can’t believe that the place is real, or that these people we see are not supers,” Margaret whispered.

“I feel every moment that a clock will strike and that it will all fade away.”

“I’m afraid I’m too material for such imaginings,” Francis replied, “but there is a quaintly artificial air about it all.  We must go and look for Wilmore and Lady Cynthia.”

They turned back into the enervating atmosphere of the winter-garden, and came suddenly face to face with Sir Timothy, who had escorted a little party of his guests to see the fountain, and was now returning alone.

“You have been dancing, I am glad to see,” the latter observed.  “I trust that you are amusing yourselves?”