Sir Donald looked at her with a sudden inquiring shrewdness, that lit up his faded eyes and made them for a moment almost young. He had caught a sound of vexation in her voice, which reminded him oddly of the sound in her singing voice when Miss Filberte was making a fiasco of the accompaniment. Lord Holme was visible and audible in the hall. His immense form towered above his guests, and his tremendous bass voice dominated the hum of conversation round him. Lady Holme could see from where she stood that he was in a jovial and audacious mood. The dinner to Sir Jacob Rowley had evidently been well cooked and gay. Fritz had the satisfied and rather larky air of a man who has been having one good time and intends to have another. She glanced into the drawing-rooms.

They were crammed. She saw in the distance Lady Cardington talking to Sir Donald Ulford. Both of them looked rather pathetic. Mrs. Wolfstein was not far off, standing in the midst of a group and holding forth with almost passionate vivacity and self-possession. Her husband was gliding sideways through the crowd with his peculiarly furtive and watchful air, which always suggested the old nursery game, "Here I am on Tom Tiddler's ground, picking up gold and silver." Lady Manby was laughing in a corner with an archdeacon who looked like a guardsman got up in fancy dress.

Mr. Bry, his eyeglass fixed in his left eye, came towards the staircase, moving delicately like Agag, and occasionally dropping a cold or sarcastic word to an acquaintance. He reached Lady Holme when Lord Holme was half-way up the stairs, and at once saw him.

"A giant refreshed with wine," he observed, dropping his eyeglass.

It was such a perfect description of Lord Holme in his present condition that two or three people who were standing with Lady Holme smiled, looking down the staircase. Lady Holme did not smile. She continued chattering, but her face wore a discontented expression. Mr. Bry noticed it. There were very few things he did not notice, although he claimed to be the most short-sighted man in London.

"Why is your husband so dutiful to-night?" he murmured to his hostess.

"I thought he always had to go into the country to look at a gee-gee on these occasions."

"He had to be in town for the dinner to Sir Jacob Rowley. I begged him to come back in--How did do! How did do! Yes, very. Mr. Raleigh, do tell the opera people not to put on Romeo too often this season. Of course Melba's splendid in it, and all that, but still--"

Mr. Bry fixed his eyeglass again, and began to smile gently like an evil-minded baby. Lord Holme's brown face was full in view, grinning.

His eyes were looking about with unusual vivacity.

"How early you are, Fritz! Good boy. I want you to look after--"

"I say, Vi, why didn't you tell me?"

Mr. Bry, letting his eyeglass fall, looked abstracted and lent an attentive ear. If he were not playing prompter to social comedies he generally stood in the wings, watching and listening to them with a cold amusement that was seldom devoid of a spice of venom.

"Tell you what, Fritz?"

"That Miss Schley was comin' to-night. Everyone's talking about her. I sat next Laycock at dinner and he was ravin'. Told me she was to be here and I didn't know it. Rather ridiculous, you know. Where is she?"

"Somewhere in the rooms."

"What's she like?"

"Oh!--I don't know. She's in black. Go and look for her."

Lord Holme strode on. As he passed Mr. Bry he said:

"I say, Bry, d'you know Miss Pimpernel Schley?"

"Naturally."

"Come with me, there's a good chap, and--what's she like?"

As they went on into the drawing-rooms Mr. Bry dropped out:

"Some people say she's like Lady Holme."

"Like Vi! Is she? Laycock's been simply ravin'--simply ravin'--and Laycock's not a feller to--where is she?

"We shall come to her. So there was no gee-gee to look at in the country to-night?"

Lord Holme burst into a roar of laughter.

"There's the vestal tending her lamp," said Mr. Bry a moment later.

"The what up to what?"

"Miss Pimpernel Schley keeping the fire of adoration carefully alight."

"Where?"

"There."

"Oh, I see! Jove, what a skin, though! Eh! Isn't it? She is deuced like Vi at a distance. Vi looks up just like that when she's singin'. Doesn't she, though? Eh?"

He went on towards her.

Mr. Bry followed him, murmuring.

"The giant refreshed with wine. No gee-gee to-night. No gee-gee."

CHAPTER VIII

"THE brougham is at the door, my lady."

"Tell his lordship."

The butler went out, and Lady Holme's maid put a long black cloak carefully over her mistress's shoulders. While she did this Lady Holme stood quite still gazing into vacancy. They were in the now deserted yellow drawing-room, which was still brilliantly lit, and full of the already weary-looking flowers which had been arranged for the reception.

The last guest had gone and the carriage was waiting to take the Holmes to Arkell House.

The maid did something to the diamonds in Lady Holme's hair with deft fingers, and the light touch seemed to wake Lady Holme from a reverie.

She went to a mirror and looked into it steadily. The maid stood behind.

After a moment Lady Holme lifted her hand suddenly to her head, as if she were going to take off her tiara. The maid could not repress a slight movement of startled astonishment. Lady Holme saw it in the glass, dropped her hand, and said:

"C'est tout, Josephine. Vous pouvez vous en aller."

"Merci, miladi."

She went out quietly.

Two or three minutes passed. Then Lord Holme's deep bass voice was audible, humming vigorously:

"Ina, Ina, oh, you should have seen her!

Seen her with her eyes cast down.

She looked upon the floor, And all the Johnnies swore That Ina, Ina--oh, you should have seen her!-- That Ina was the _chic_-est girl in town."

Lady Holme frowned.

"Fritz!" she called rather sharply.