"I beg your pardon," he answered hastily. "They are playing _Cavalleria Rusticana_. An opera. Written by a young Italian. His name is Mascagni." "You are rude!" she exclaimed. "I am human, Joan. You hurt me!" Then her sister and Bletchworth reappeared. "Perhaps you know a good hotel?" Conrad was saying. "An hotel where?" inquired Lady Bletchworth. "Mr. Warrener is going to Homburg; I tell him everybody says it's deadly dull there this year," murmured Mrs. Adaile. It was deadly dull in Ostend, too, during the next hour. Both women were rather quiet, and Bletchworth was exceptionally wearisome. But for the fact that it was the farewell evening Conrad would have seen friends among the company and gone to greet them. However, at last the orchestra finished, and they all got up. A leisurely crowd was flocking to the exit, and--perhaps it was the crowd, perhaps it was Lady Bletchworth--Conrad and Mrs. Adaile were separated from the others for satisfactory seconds. "Won't you forgive me?" he whispered. Even a crowd has merits--her hand rested on his arm an instant. "It must be fate," he said; "I always offend you just when we're going to part. Do you remember?" She nodded. "I remember." Her glance was very pretty in the moonshine. "This won't be our last talk together?" he begged. "What are you going to do when we go in?" "I suppose we shall sit in the garden." "But--everybody?" "I expect so.... Don't let's keep behind! Walk with Lily." She addressed her brother-in-law, and Conrad sauntered beside Lady Bletchworth. The windows of the Villa this, and the Villa that, were thrown wide behind the mass of blooms. In the crimson dusk of lamp-shades there was the glint of a white gown, the glow of a cigarette point among cushions, a bubble of laughter. Every minute a dim interior flashed to brightness--someone returned and switched on the light, a woman took off her hat before the mirror. Through one window came the jingle of money on a card table; through another shouts--Paulette Fleury was singing to friends one of the songs that she had not sung at the Empire in London. To the left, the track of moonlight on the sea kept pace with Conrad. It was more agreeable in the garden than on the terrace at the onset. Already it had an air of intimacy, the artificial enclosure, with its tesselated paving, and its affectation of rusticity; already he was on good terms with it. Curiously enough, such hotel gardens, misnamed as they are, have a knack of making a visitor feel at home, of endearing themselves to him, more quickly than acres of lawns and elms.