The great flash-light on Wonder Head broke out in brilliancy, faded, died to a cinder, grew perceptible again, and again blazed blindingly in its endless monotonous routine; far lights twinkled on the Sound, and farther away still, at sea.  Then the majestic velvety shadow of the Hither Woods fell over them; and they passed in among the trees, the lamps of the depot wagon shining golden in the forest gloom.

Selwyn turned instinctively to the young girl beside him.  Her face was in shadow, but she responded with the slightest movement toward him: 

“This dusk is satisfying—­like sleep—­this wide, quiet shadow over the world.  Once—­and not so very long ago—­I thought it a pity that the sun should ever set. . . .  I wonder if I am growing old—­because I feel the least bit tired to-night.  For the first time that I can remember a day has been a little too long for me.”

She evidently did not ascribe her slight sense of fatigue to the scene on the veranda; perhaps she was too innocent to surmise that any physical effect could follow that temporary stress of emotion.  A quiet sense of relief in relaxation from effort came over her as she leaned back, conscious that there was happiness in rest and silence and the soft envelopment of darkness.

“If it would only last,” she murmured lazily.

“What, Eileen?”

“This heavenly darkness—­and our drive, together. . . .  You are quite right not to talk to me; I won’t, either. . . .  Only I’ll drone on and on from time to time—­so that you won’t forget that I am here beside you.”

She lay so still for a while that at last Nina leaned forward to look at her; then laughed.

“She’s asleep,” she said to Austin.

“No, I’m not,” murmured the girl, unclosing her eyes; “Captain Selwyn knows; don’t you? . . .  What is that sparkling—­a fire-fly?”

But it was the first paper lantern glimmering through the Hitherwood trees from the distant lawn.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Eileen, sitting up with an effort, and looking sleepily at Selwyn. “J’ai sommeil—­besoin—­dormir—­”

But a few minutes later they were in the great hall of Hitherwood House, opened from end to end to the soft sea wind, and crowded with the gayest, noisiest throng that had gathered there in a twelvemonth.

Everywhere the younger set were in evidence; slim, fresh, girlish figures passed and gathered and crowded the stairs and galleries with a flirt and flutter of winnowing skirts, delicate and light as powder-puffs.

Mrs. Sanxon Orchil, a hard, highly coloured, tight-lipped little woman with electric-blue eyes, was receiving with her slim brunette daughter, Gladys.

“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action.

Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retrousse moustache.