"What a shame!" she cried. "Why should he go if he doesn't want to? And, for all we know, none of us may be able to accept. We've got to get leave first, and then we've got to ask if we can have the Ford." She paused to glance at the time. "Ten to eight, and you haven't washed the yard yet. Don't sit there, George. Get a move on. You chauffeurs!" She fairly drove him about his business. All the same, before the day was over she had wheedled a promise from Anthony that, master and mistress permitting, he would go to the dance. The Bumbles were duly approached, and consented readily to the projected exodus, asking solicitously if a quarter to ten would be early enough for the four to leave The Shrubbery, and offering the use of the Ford before this was sought. Considering that they were not upon the visiting list of Lady Touchstone, or, for that matter, upon that of any other of their domestics' friends, their readiness to facilitate the excursion must be accounted to them for righteousness of a calibre rare indeed. The night of the dance came, and the stars with it. All the company of heaven twinkled and flashed out of a windless sky. No solitary breath of air rustled the silence of the woods. Summer was dying hard. Yet in the bottoms there lay--sure sign of Autumn--little hoary pools of mist, just deep enough to swathe the Ford and its complement of would-be revellers in a wet rush of frozen smoke, and make the girls thrust their pink fingers beneath the rug, and Anthony his hands into his coat-pockets. For all that, for Lyveden the five miles to Bell Hammer were covered too soon. He liked to feel the rush of the wings of Night upon his temples, to mark the untroubled slumber of the country-side, gaze at the velvet dome fretted with silver. Moreover, he was almost dreading the dance. Had he not given his word a week ago, he would--speaking vulgarly--have stuck his toes in and seen his companions to the edge of the pit before he followed them into the mansion. For a mansion it was. Though the night was moonless, Anthony could see that. That it was a beautiful specimen of a "Queen Anne" residence he could not perceive. Indeed, almost before the car had been berthed close to the shadowy elegance of a tremendous cedar, the front door was opened, and a great shaft of light streamed out into the darkness. The guests passed in. The monstrous deference of the footman who received Anthony's coat and hat gave a disconcerting fillip to the latter's uneasiness. As a respectful butler preceded the party upstairs, he felt as if he were being conducted to a scaffold. "Captain and Mrs. Alison, Miss Alison, Major Lyveden." Anthony braced himself. The next moment-- "How d'ye do?" said Valerie, with a quiet smile. "I'm so glad you could come. How's Patch?" With a whirling brain, Anthony tried to say that Patch was very well.