noise of two or three hundred people all talking at once in small rooms causes a roar extraordinarily strident, and, as in the case of rooms full of tobacco-smoke, intolerable unless one contributes to it oneself. Mr. Alington had to raise his small, precise voice till it sounded as if he was intoning, and the effort was considerable. This particular way of passing a pleasant evening in the heat of the summer was hitherto unknown to him, and he looked about him in mild wonder. He felt himself reminded of those crates of ducks and fowls which are to be seen on the decks of ocean-going steamers, the occupants of which are so cruelly overcrowded, and of whom the most fortunate only can thrust their beaks through the wicker of their prison-house, and quack desolately to the breeze of the sea. Lady Haslemere's rooms seemed to him to resemble these bird-crates, the only difference being that people sought this suffocating imprisonment of their own free will, because they liked it, the birds because the passengers had to be fed. One or two very tall men had their heads free, a few others stood by windows, and could breathe; but the majority could neither breathe nor hear, nor see further than their immediate neighbours. They could only quack. And they quacked.
By degrees the party thinned; an unwilling lane was cut through the crowd for the exit of the princes, and the great full-blown flowers in the hedges, so to speak, bobbed down in turn as they passed, like a field of poppies blown on by a passing wind. After them those lucky folk who were going on to another house, where they would stand shoulder to shoulder again with a slightly different crowd, and express extreme wonder that their neighbours had not been at Lady Haslemere's ("I thought everyone was there!"), made haste to follow. Outside all down the street from Berkeley Square at one end to Piccadilly at the other stretched the lines of carriage-lamps, looking like some gigantic double necklace. The congestion in the drawing-room developed into a really alarming inflammation in the cloak-room and the hall, and everyone wanted her carriage and was waiting for it, except the one unfortunate lady whose carriage stopped the whole of the way, as a stentorian policeman studiously informed her, but who could only find attached to her ticket a small opera hat instead of the cloak which should have covered her. People trod on each other's toes and heels, and entangled themselves in other folks' jewels and lace. Rain had begun to fall heavily, the red carpet from the door to the curbstone was moist and muddy, contemptuous footmen escorted elderly ladies under carriage umbrellas to their broughams, and large drops of rain fell chill on the elderly ladies' backs. Loungers of the streets criticised the outgoers with point and cockney laughter, but still the well-dressed crowd jostled and quacked and talked, and said how remarkably pleasant it had been, and how doubly delightful it was to have come here from somewhere else, and to go on somewhere else from here.
Half an hour after the departure of the princes, Lady Haslemere, who was fast ceasing to yawn, manœuvred the two or three dozen people who still could not manage to tear themselves away, into the outermost of the three drawing-rooms, and nodded to a footman who lingered in the doorway, and had obvious orders to catch her eye. Upon this he and another impassive giant glided into the innermost room, and took two green-baize-covered tables from where they had been folded against the wall, setting them in the middle of the room, and placed a dozen chairs round them; then, making use of a back staircase, so that they should not be seen by the remaining "Grundys," they brought up and laid out a cold supper, consisting chiefly of jelly and frills and froth and glass and bottles and quails and cigarettes, put cards, counters, and candles on the green-baize tables, and withdrew. Ten minutes later the last of the "Grundys" withdrew also, and the rest, some dozen people who had stood about in attitudes of the deepest dejection for the last half-hour, while a Bishop played the man of the world to Kit, heaved a heartfelt sigh of relief, and brightened up considerably. Automatically, or as if by the action of a current of air or a tide, they drifted into the inner room, and chalk lines were neatly drawn on the green-baize cloth.
Baccarat is a game admirably suited to people who have had a long day, and is believed to be a specific antidote to the gloom induced by huge "Grundy" parties. It is an effort and a strain on the mind to talk to very solid people who are interested in great questions and delight in discussion; but at baccarat the mind, so to speak, lights a cigarette, throws itself into an armchair, and puts on its slippers. Baccarat requires no judgment, no calculation, no previous knowledge of anything, and though it is full of pleasing excitement, it makes no demands whatever on the strongest or feeblest intellect. The players have only to put themselves blindly, as ladies dressing for dinner surrender themselves to a skilful maid, into the hands of Luck, and the austere elemental forces which manage the winds and waves, and decree in what order nines and other cards are dealt from packs, do the rest. You buy your counters, and when they are all gone you buy some more. If, on the other hand, they behave as counters should, and increase and multiply like rabbits, you have the pleasure of presenting them to your host at the end of the evening or the beginning of the morning, as the case may be, and he very kindly gives you shining sterling gold and rich crackling bank-notes in exchange.
Tom Abbotsworthy, since he had been staying with his sister, always took the place of host when this soothing game was being played at Berkeley Street; for Lord Haslemere, if he were not in bed, was by this time busily practising nursery cannons on the billiard-table. Occasionally he looked in, with his fidgety manner, and trifled with the froth and frills, and if there was anyone present whose greatness demanded his attendance, he took a hesitating hand. But to-night he was spared; there was only a small, intimate party, who would have found him a bore. He was slow at cards, displayed an inordinate greed for his stake, and had been known at baccarat to consider whether he should have another. This, as already stated, is unnecessary. With certain numbers you must; with all the others you must not, and consideration delays the game.
The hours passed much more pleasantly and briskly than during the period of the "Grundy" party. It was a warm, still night, the windows were flung wide, and the candles burned unwaveringly. Round the table were a dozen eager, attentive faces. Luck, like some Pied Piper, was fluting to the nobility and gentry, and the nobility and gentry followed her like the children of Hamelin. Now and then one of them would rise and consult the side-table to the diminishment of frills and froth, or the crisp-smelling smoke of a cigarette would hold the room for a few minutes. Most of those present had been idle all day, now they were employed and serious. Outside the rain had ceased, and for a couple of hours the never-ending symphony of wheels sank to a pianissimo. Occasionally, with a sharp-cut noise of hoofs and the jingle of a bell, a hansom would trot briskly past, and at intervals an iron-shod van made thunder in the street. But the siesta of noise was short, for time to the most is precious; barely had the world got home from its parties of the night, when those whose business it is to rise when their masters are going to bed, in order that the breakfast-table may not lack its flowers and fruits, began to get to the morning's work, and the loaded, fragrant vans went eastward. The candles had once burned down, and had been replaced by one of the impassive giants, when the hint of dawn, the same dawn that in the country illuminated with tremulous light the dewy hollows of untrodden ways, was whispered in the world. Here it but changed the blank, dark faces of the houses opposite into a more visible gray; it sucked the fire from the candles, was strangely unbecoming to Lady Haslemere, who was calculated for artificial light, and out of the darkness was born day.
There was no longer any need for the carriage-lamps to be lit when Kit and her husband got into their brougham. A very pale-blue sky, smokeless and clear, was over the city, and the breath of the morning was deliciously chill. Kit, whether from superior art or mere nature, did not look in the least out of keeping with the morning. She was a little flushed, but her flush was that of a child just awakened from a long night's rest more than that of a woman of twenty-five, excited by baccarat and sufficient – in no degree more than sufficient – champagne. Her constant harmony with her surroundings was her most extraordinary characteristic; it seemed to be an instinct, acting automatically, just as the chameleon takes its colour from its surroundings. Set her in a well-dressed mob of the world, she was the best dressed and most worldly woman there; among rosy-faced children she would look at the most a pupil teacher. Just now in Lady Haslemere's drawing-room you would have called her gambler to her finger-tips; but as she stood for a moment on the pavement outside waiting for her carriage-door to be opened, she was a child of morning.
She
