Dinner was delayed for nearly half an hour while four of the guests finished their “rubber.” Penelope observed that the party displayed varying emotions. It afterwards transpired that the hunters had spent most of the afternoon in her ladyship's distant lodge playing bridge for rather high stakes. Little Miss Folsom was pitifully unresponsive to the mirth of Mr. Odwell. She could ill afford to lose six hundred dollars. Lady Bazelhurst was in a frightful mood. Her guests had so far forgotten themselves as to win more than a thousand dollars of the Banks legacy and she was not a cheerful loser,--especially as his lordship had dropped an additional five hundred. The winners were riotously happy. They had found the sport glorious. An observer, given to deductions, might have noticed that half of the diners were immoderately hilarious, the other half studiously polite. Lord Bazelhurst wore a hunted look and drank more than one or two highballs. From time to time he cast furtive glances at his wife. He laughed frequently at the wrong time and mirthlessly. “He's got something on his mind,” whispered Odwell in comment. “Yes; he always laughs when there is anything on his mind,” replied Mrs. De Peyton. “That 's the way he gets it off.” After dinner no one proposed cards. The party edged off into twos and threes and explained how luck had been with or against them. Penelope, who could not afford to play for stakes, and had the courage to say so, sat back and listened to the conversation of her brother and the group around him. The duke was holding forth on the superiority of the Chinese over the Japanese as servants and Bazelhurst was loudly defending the Japanese navy. “Hang it all, Barminster, the Japs could eat 'em up,” he proclaimed. “Could n't they?” to the crowd. “I'm talking about servants, Cecil,” observed the duke. “And shoot? Why, they're the greatest gunners in the world. By Jove, I read somewhere the other day that they had hit what they shot at three million times out of--or, let me see, was it the Prussians who fired three million rounds and--” “Oh, let's change the subject,” said the duke in disgust. “What's become of that Shaw fellow?” Penelope started and flushed, much to her chagrin. At the sound of Shaw's name Lady Bazelhurst, who was passing with the count, stopped so abruptly that her companion took half a dozen paces without her. “Shaw? By Jove, do you know, I'd completely forgotten that fellow,” exclaimed Cecil. “I thought you were going to shoot him, or shoot at him, or something like that. Can't you get him in range?” “Oh, I was n't really in earnest about that, Barminster. You know we couldn't shoot at a fellow for such a thing--” “Nonsense, Cecil,” said his wife. “You shoot poachers in England.” “But this fellow is n't a poacher. He's a--a gentleman, I daresay--in some respects--not all, of course, my dear, but--” “Gentleman? Ridiculous!” scoffed his wife.