As I reached the door I selected a volume at random to take back to Colony House. I put out the lights and turned a moment to look about. The platinum wires still glowed dully, and weak moonlight now filled the room with a silver grayness. I wondered whether, in the magic of some of these tropical nights, when the last ball had been pocketed and the last swizzle drunk belowstairs, some of the book-lovers of olden times, who had read these volumes and turned down the creased pages, did not return and again laugh and cry over them. There was no inharmonious note: no thrilling short stories, no gaudy chromatic bindings, no slangy terse titles, no magazines or newspapers. Such gentlefolk as came could have sat there and listened to the crickets and the occasional cry of a distant heron and have been untroubled by the consciousness of any passage of time. I learned that this Library Club had been the oldest in the West Indies, founded about three quarters of a century ago. It had long ceased to exist, and no one ever disturbed the quietness of the gradual dissolution of this admirable collection of old works. I walked slowly back, thinking of the strange contrast between what I had seen and the unlovely, commercialized buildings along the street. I was startled from my reverie by the challenge of the sentry, and for a moment could not think what to answer. I had well-nigh forgotten my own personality in the vividness of the stately early Victorian atmosphere. Long after the Colony House dog had noisily announced the beginning of his nocturnal feast, I lay behind my net poring over the _Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope, as related by herself in conversations with her physician, comprising her opinions and anecdotes of some most remarkable persons_, and I came to the conclusion that by far the most remarkable of them all was Lady Hester herself.