faces of Olympian deities, who were immortal because they had never lived, looked with calm scorn upon the flushed cheeks and haggard eyes of men and women too eager to drain the cup of sensuous life. Claude and Mrs. Bellenden stood side by side in the winter moonlight while they waited for carriage after carriage to roll away, before a miniature brougham of neatest build came to the edge of the crimson carpet. They had had plenty of time for whispered talk while they waited, but there had been no more laughter, rather a subdued and almost whispered interchange of confidential speech; and the last word as he stood by the brougham door was "to-morrow." Lady Susan and Vera went up the great staircase together, Susie with her usual demonstrative affection, her arm interwoven with her friend's. "Your party has been glorious, darling!" she began. "I see now that it is the house that makes the glory and the dream. Your parties in Portland Place were just as good, as parties, but oh, the difference! Instead of the vulgar crush upon the staircase, and the three overcrowded drawing-rooms, immense for London--this luxury of space, this gorgeous succession of rooms, so numerous that it makes one giddy to count them. Vera, I see now that it is only vast space that can give grandeur. The bricks and stone in your London house would have made a street in Mayfair; but it is a hovel compared with this. And to think of that good-for-nothing cousin of mine leaving a bachelor's diggings in St. James's to be lord of this palace. There never was such luck!" "I don't think Claude cares very much for the villa, or for Rome," Vera answered coldly. "He prefers London and Newmarket." "That's what men are made of. They don't care for houses or for furniture. They only care for horses and dogs, and other women," assented Susan lightly. They were at the door of Vera's rooms by this time, but Susie's entwining arms still held her. "Do let me come in for a _cause_." "I'm very tired." "Only five minutes." "Oh, as long as you like. I may as well sit up and talk as lie down, and think." "What, are you as bad a sleeper as ever?" "I have lost the knack of sleep. But I suppose I sleep enough, as I am alive. Some people talk as if three or four sleepless nights would kill them; but Sir Andrew Clarke let Gladstone lie awake seven nights before he would give him an opiate." "But you will lose your beauty--worse than losing your life. You looked lovely to-night--too lovely, too much like an exquisite phantom. And now, my sweet Vera, don't be angry if I touch upon a delicate--no, an indelicate subject. You must never let Mrs. Bellenden enter your house again." "Indeed, Susie! But why?" "Because she is simply too outrageous!" "Do you mean too handsome, too attractive?"