empty, and heard my footsteps echoing up the cliff-like sides of the houses. I caught a glimpse of the moon silvering the Campanile of Westminster Cathedral, and when I reached the Abbey, it and the Houses of Parliament were washed in soft and brilliant light. And yet, somehow, I could not think. I could not survey, with my usual cool detachment, the situation which had suddenly risen in my life. I remember that the predominant feeling was a wish that I had never gone to Lady Brentford's, that I had never seen or spoken to Juanita Morse. What was the use after all? She was as much above my hopes as a Princess of the Royal House, and yet I knew that without her I should never be really happy again.

It was in a sort of desperation that I hurried up Parliament Street and through Trafalgar Square, feeling that I was a fool and mad, wanting to hide my shame in my own quiet rooms, where at any rate I should be alone.

I opened the door with my Yale key and ran lightly up the stairs to the flat on the first floor which I occupied. As I went into the lounge hall and took off my overcoat, Preston, whom I had not told to wait up for me, came from the passage leading to the servants' quarters carrying a tray.

"I shan't want any supper, thank you, Preston," I said in surprise.

"Thank you, sir, very good sir," he replied, "but his lordship and Captain Moore are here and have just asked for something."

My first emotion was one of unutterable surprise, and then I scowled and felt inclined to swear. What on earth were those two doing here at this time of night, just when I would have given almost anything to be left alone?

I hesitated for a moment and then walked into the smoking-room.

Pat was seated in a lounge chair smoking a cigar. Arthur was pacing up and down the carpet. Neither of them appeared to have been talking, and, as I came in, they looked at me curiously, and I saw that their faces in some subtle way were changed.

They were my best friends, for years we had been accustomed to treat each other's quarters and possessions as if they were our own, and yet now I felt as if they were intruding strangers, though I tried hard to be genial.

"Hallo," I said in a voice that cracked upon the word, "didn't expect to see you again. Anything special?"

Preston was putting his tray of sandwiches and deviled biscuits on the table, so we could not say much, but directly he had left the room old Pat got up from his chair. He held out his hand, pointing at me with a trembling finger. His face was purple.

"You, you danced twice with her," he said.

So that was it! I grew ice-cold in a moment.

"I won't pretend to misunderstand to what you refer," I said, "but what the devil is that to you?"

"Pat, don't be a fool!" Arthur whipped out, though the look he gave me, which he tried to disguise, was not a friendly one.

"Fool is hardly the word," I said. "Kindly explain yourself, Moore, and forget that you are my guest if you like—I don't mind."

The huge man trembled. Then he turned away with a sort of snarl, snatched his handkerchief from his cuff and mopped his face.

I sat down and lit a cigarette.

"Can you explain this, Arthur?" I asked.

He sat down too, and began to tap with his shoe upon the carpet.

"Oh, I don't know," he said sullenly. "You were the only man in the room, Kirby, to whom she gave more than one dance."

"That's as may be. I suppose you don't propose to expostulate with the lady herself? And, by the way, I always thought that it wasn't exactly form to discuss these things in the way you appear to have been doing."

That got Arthur on the mark. His face grew very white and he sat perfectly still.

Then Pat heaved himself round.

"She's not for you, at any rate," he said. "They will marry her to a duke or one of the Princes."

Suddenly the humor of all this struck me forcibly and I lay back in my chair and burst into a peal of laughter.

"That's quite likely," I said, "though I don't think, what I have seen of Mr. Morse, that he is likely to have ambitions that way, and I am quite certain that Miss Morse will marry the man she wants to marry and no one else, whether he is a thoroughbred or hairy at the heels. I think all this talk on your part—remember you began it, Pat—is perfectly disgraceful, to say nothing of its utter childishness. As for your saying that a young lady whom I have met for the first time to-night and danced with twice, is not for me, it's a damnable piece of impertinence that you should dare to insinuate that I look upon her in the way you suggest."

I jumped up from my seat and knew that I was dominating them all right.

"Supposing what you say is true, I admit that my chance isn't worth two penn'orth o' cold gin, though it's every bit as good, and probably better, than yours, all things considered. You are certainly a fine figure of a man."

I was furious, mad, keen to provoke him to an outburst. The calculated insult was patent enough.

I thought he was about to go for me, and I stood ready, when "What about me?" came in a dry crackling voice from Arthur.

"Oh, I should put you and me about level," I said, "with the courtesy title as a little extra weight. It is a pity you should be the second son."

"Damn you, Kirby!" he burst out, blazing with anger.

I lifted up my hand and looked at both of them.

"I came in here," I said, "to my own house and find my two best friends, that I thought, waiting for me. A few hours ago I should have thought such a scene as this utterly impossible. I will ask you both to remember that it has not been provoked by me in any way, and that directly I came in you turned on me in the most atrocious and ill-bred way. Of your idea of the value of friendship I say nothing at all—it is obvious I must say nothing about that. Now you have forced the pace I will say this. To marry that young lady—I don't like to speak her name even—is about as difficult as to dive in a cork jacket or keep a smelt in a net. But I mean to try. I mean to use every ounce of weight I've got. I shall almost certainly fail, but now you know."

"Since you have said that," Pat broke in, "handicaps be damned! I'm a starter for the same stakes, and it's hell for leather I'll ride, and it's meself that says it, Tom."

Arthur Winstanley spoke last.

"I'm a fellow of a good many ambitions," he said quietly, "though I've never bothered you chaps with them. Now they are all consolidated into one."

Then we all stood and looked at each other, the cards on the table, and in the faces of the other two at least there was uneasiness and shame.

Just at that moment a funny thing happened. Preston had brought in an ice pail full of bottles of soda water. The heat of the night, or something, caused one of the corks to break its confining wire and go off with a startling report, while a fountain of foam drenched the sandwiches.

"Me kingdom for a drink!" said Pat. "Oh, the sweet, blessed, gurgling sound!" and striding to the table he mixed a gargantuan peg.

Arthur and I met behind Pat's back and he held out his hand to me, biting his lower lip.

"We've behaved abominably, old soul," he said.

The big guardsman turned round and raised his glass on high.

"Here's to the sweetest and most lovely lady in the world, bedad!" he shouted, accentuating his Irish brogue. "May the best man win her, fair fight, and no favors, and may the Queen of Heaven and all the saints watch over the little darlint and guide her choice aright!"

So all our midnight madness passed like a fleeting cloud. An extraordinary accession of high spirits came to us as we pledged the dark-haired maiden from Brazil. And it was Pat, dear old Pat, who welded us together in a league of chivalry against which nothing was ever to prevail.

"Tom," he said, "Arthur—we are all like brothers, we always have been. Let there be no change in that, now or ever. I have something to propose."