ensconced in the clubhouse, berating the unfortunate elements, and
waiting for the last express with a persistency which allowed three or
four earlier trains to come and go unnoticed. The cheerful highball
was coming into its own. A stern winter of bridge had not killed the
ardour of certain worshippers; continuous criticism of play arose from
the table in the corner where two men and two women were engaged with
the cards.

The perennial bore, who noses into everything in order to sniff his
own wit, sauntered amiably from group to group, pouring out jests as
murky as the night itself. He saw none of the scowls nor heard the
toe-taps; he went blithely along his bridgeless way.

"I say, Brown, I saw your wife on the street yesterday, but she didn't
see me," he observed to the blase-looking man in corduroys.

"Ya-as," returned the other, calmly staring past him; "so she told me
last night." The bore and his blissful smile passed on to the next
group. There, two or three women were chatting with as many men,
yawning and puffing at their cigarettes, bored by the risque stories
the men were telling, but smiling as though they had not already heard
them from other men. Occasional remarks, dropped softly into the ears
of the women, may have brought faint blushes to their cheeks, but the
firelight was a fickle consort to such changes. The sly turn of a
sentence gave many a double meaning; the subtle glance of the eye
intended no harm. Dobson's new toast to "fair women" earned a roar of
laughter, but afterwards Dobson was called to account by a husband who
realised. A man over in the corner was thumping aimlessly on the
piano; a golf fanatic was vigorously contending that he had driven 243
yards against the wind; a tennis enthusiast was lamenting the fact