What a crowd! Must we stay very long ?" "Ah, my dear Mrs.Boyce," cried Lord Maxwell, meeting them on the steps of the inner quadrangular corridor--"Welcome indeed! Let me take you in.
Marcella! with Aldous's permission!" he stooped his white head gallantly and kissed her on the cheek--"Remember I am an old man; if I choose to pay you compliments, you will have to put up with them!" Then he offered Mrs.Boyce his arm, a stately figure in his ribbon and cross of the Bath.

A delicate red had risen to that lady's thin cheek in spite of her self-possession.

"Poor thing," said Lord Maxwell to himself as he led her along--"poor thing!--how distinguished and charming still! One sees to-night what she was like as a girl." Aldous and Marcella followed.

They had to pass along the great corridor which ran round the quadrangle of the house.

The antique marbles which lined it were to-night masked in flowers, and seats covered in red had been fitted in wherever it was possible, and were now crowded with dancers "sitting out." From the ball-room ahead came waves of waltz-music; the ancient house was alive with colour and perfume, with the sounds of laughter and talk, lightly fretting, and breaking the swaying rhythms of the band.