Now amongst them they had driven Kate Peyton too hard; so she secretly formed a bold resolution; and, this done, her whole manner changed for the better. She turned to Neville, and flattered and fascinated him. The most feline of her sex could scarcely equal her calinerie on this occasion. But she did not confine her fascination to him. She broke out, pro bono publico, like the sun in April, with quips and cranks and dimpled smiles, and made everybody near her quite forget her late hauteur and coldness, and bask in this sunny sweet hostess. When the charm was at its height, the Siren cast a seeming merry glance at Griffith, and said to a lady opposite, "Methinks some of the gentlemen will be glad to be rid of us," and so carried the ladies off to the drawing-room. There, her first act was to dismiss her smiles without ceremony, and her second was to sit down and write four lines to the gentleman at the head of the dining-table. And he was as drunk as a fiddler. CHAPTER X Griffith's friends laughed heartily with him while he was getting drunk, and, when he had got drunk, they laughed still louder, only at him. They "knocked him down" for a song; and he sang a rather Anacreontic one very melodiously, and so loud that certain of the servants, listening outside, derived great delectation from it; and Neville applauded ironically. Soon after, they "knocked him down" for a story; and, as it requires more brains to tell a story than, to sing a song, the poor butt made an ass of himself: he maundered and wandered, and stopped, and went on, and lost one thread and took up and another, and got into a perfect maze. And, while he was thus entangled, a servant came in and brought him a note, and put it in his hand. The unhappy narrator received it with a sapient nod, but was too polite or else too stupid to open it; so closed his fingers on it and wont maundering on till his story trickled into the sand of the desert, and somehow ceased; for it could not be said to end, being a thing without head or tail. He sat down amidst derisive cheers. About five minutes afterwards, in some intermittent flash of reason, he found he had got hold of something. He opened his hand, and lo, a note! On this he chuckled unreasonably, and distributed sage, cunning, winks around, as if he by special ingenuity had caught a nightingale, or the like; then with sudden hauteur and gravity proceeded to examine his prize. But he knew the handwriting at once, and it gave him a galvanic shock that half sobered him for the moment. He opened the note and spelled it with great difficulty; it was beautifully written in long, clear letters; but then those letters kept dancing so. "I much desire to speak to you before 'tis too late; but can think of no way save one; I lie in the turreted room: come under my window at nine of the clock; and prithee come sober, if you respect yourself, or KATE."