“I must say I like Lady Carfax,” broke in the woman with decision.  “Whatever her origin, that queenliness of hers is not assumed.  I believe her to be intensely reserved, and, perhaps for that very reason, I have a genuine admiration for her.”

“My dear Mrs. Randal, you’d find points to admire in a wax candle,” grunted the Major.  “She always makes me think of one; pale and pure and saintly—­I can’t stand the type.  Let’s go downstairs and find Violet.”

“Oh, not saintly, I think,” protested Mrs. Randal charitably.  “Saintly people are so uninteresting.”

The Major laughed.  He was already on his feet.

“Probably not—­probably not.  But a show of saintliness is more than enough to frighten me away.  A woman who can’t understand a wink I invariably strike forthwith off my visiting-list.”

“How cruel of you!” laughed Mrs. Randal.  They were already moving away down the corridor.  Her voice receded as they went.  “But I can’t understand any man daring to wink at Lady Carfax; I can’t, indeed.”

“That’s just what I complain about,” grumbled Major Shirley.  “Those wax-candle sort of women never see a joke.  What fools they are to leave the place in darkness like this!  Can you see where you are going?”

“Yes, we are just at the head of the stairs.  It is rather foolish as you say.  People might hurt themselves.”

“Of course they might.  Infernally dangerous.  I shall complain.”

The voices fell away into distance; the band in the ballroom struck up again, and the woman on the settee in the alcove sat up and prepared to rise.

“Suppose we go down now,” she said.

Her companion moved away from the little window as one coming out of a reverie.  “Our gallant Major Shirley seems somewhat disgruntled tonight,” he said.  “Do you know him?”

“Yes, I know him.”  Her words fell with icy precision.

“So do I.”  The man’s tone was one of sheer amusement.  “I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Rifle Club the other day.  Someone introduced us.  It was great fun.  If there were a little more light, I would show you what he looked like.  For some reason he wasn’t pleased.  Do you really want to go downstairs though?  It is much nicer here.”

She had risen.  They were facing one another in the twilight.  “Yes,” she said, and though still quiet her voice was not altogether even.  “I want to go, please.”

“Mayn’t I tell you something first?” he said.

She stood silent, evidently waiting for his communication.

“It’s not of paramount importance,” he said.  “But I think you may as well know it for your present edification and future guidance.  Madam, I am that wicked, wanton, wily fox, that whipper-snapper, that unmitigated bounder—­Nap Errol!”

He made the announcement with supreme complacence.  It was evident that he felt not the faintest anxiety as to how she would receive it.  There was even a certain careless hauteur about him as though the qualities he thus frankly enumerated were to him a source of pride.