message wrong, and I thought I couldn't come. So when I found out, I
thought 'better late than never,' though I _had_ dined. Please say
'better late than never.'"

"Better late than never," chanted the whole party dissonantly, and room
was made for the new-comer between Brigit and Yelverton.

"That fool Shover nearly broke my neck, too," he confided, sitting down
and lowering his voice confidentially. "I--I thought for a second I
should never see you again."

She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. He had been drinking.
No one had ever seen Oscar Pontefract drunk, but as time went on the
honourable body of those who had ever seen him perfectly sober
diminished rapidly.

"Haven't seen you for ten days. Damnedest ten days I ever lived
through," he continued, helping himself to whisky and soda, "and most
infernal ten nights, too. Can't sleep for thinking of you," he added
hastily, as she at last turned and looked full at him.

She was twenty-five, and had lived in this _milieu_ for the past seven
years. It had begun by disgusting her, then for a time she had been
indifferent to it, and now for the last year it had been growing
steadily unbearable.

"_Dites donc_, Lady Brigit," began Joyselle in her left ear, and as she
listened to him she instinctively drew away from Pontefract, closer to
him. At dessert Kingsmead came sauntering in, less with the air of a
little boy allowed to appear with the fruit than of a gently interested