concerned, it might have been midday. Everybody assuming to be Anybody,
was in town. The rumble of carriages passing to and fro was
incessant,--the swift whirr and warning hoot of coming and going motor
vehicles, the hoarse cries of the newsboys, and the general insect-like
drone and murmur of feverish human activity were as loud as at any busy
time of the morning or the afternoon. There had been a Court at
Buckingham Palace,--and a "special" performance at the Opera,--and on
account of these two functions, entertainments were going on at almost
every fashionable house in every fashionable quarter. The public
restaurants were crammed with luxury-loving men and women,--men and
women to whom the mere suggestion of a quiet dinner in their own homes
would have acted as a menace of infinite boredom,--and these gilded and
refined eating-houses were now beginning to shoot forth their bundles of
well-dressed, well-fed folk into the many and various conveyances
waiting to receive them. There was a good deal of needless shouting, and
much banter between drivers and policemen. Now and again the melancholy
whine of a beggar's plea struck a discordant note through the
smooth-toned compliments and farewells of hosts and their departing
guests. No hint of pause or repose was offered in the ever-changing
scene of uneasy and impetuous excitation of movement, save where, far up
in the clear depths of space, the glittering star-battalions of a
wronged and forgotten God held their steadfast watch and kept their
hourly chronicle. London with its brilliant "season" seemed the only
living fact worth recognising; London, with its flaring noisy streets,
and its hot summer haze interposed like a grey veil between itself and
the higher vision. Enough for most people it was to see the
veil,--beyond it the view is always too vast and illimitable for the
little vanities of ordinary mortal minds.

Amid all the din and turmoil of fashion and folly seeking its own in the