"They will be calling on you presently to drink our host's health," he suggested, clearing a space of the table in front of her and collecting very dexterously two or three unused wine-glasses. Champagne? . . . Miss Quiney is drinking champagne, I see, though her neighbours have deserted it for red wine. Sir Oliver, by the way, grows lazy in pushing the decanters. . . . Shall I signal to him?" "On no account. Champagne, if you please . . . though I had rather you kept it in readiness." "I am sorry, Miss Josselin, but there you ask of me the one thing impossible. I cannot abide to let wine stand and wait; and champagne-- watch it, how it protests!" He filled her glass and refilled his own. "By the way," he added, sinking his voice, "one is permitted to congratulate a debutante?" "And to criticise." "There was nothing to criticise except--Oh, well, a trifle. At home in England we don't 'my lord' a mere baronet, you know." "But since he _is_ my lord?" She smiled gently, answering his puzzled stare. "How, otherwise, should I be here?" Mr. Langton took wine to digest this. He shook his head. "You must forgive me. It is clear that I am drunk--abominably drunk--for I miss the point--" "You accuse yourself unjustly." "Do I? Well, I have certainly drunk a deal more wine than is good for me, and it will be revenged to-morrow. As a rule,"--he glanced around at his fellow-topers--"I pride myself that in head and legs I am inexpugnable. We all have our gifts; and i' faith until a moment ago I was patting myself on the back for owning this one." "And why, Mr. Langton?" "On the thought, Mistress Josselin, that I had cut out the frigate, as our tars say, and towed the prize to moorings before the others could fire a gun." "I had hoped," she murmured, and bent her eyes on the wine-bubbles winking against the rim of her glass, "you did it in simple kindness." "Well," he owned slowly, "and so I did. This belittling of good intentions, small enough to begin with, is a cursed habit, and I'll renounce it for once. It was little--it was nothing; yet behold me eager to be thanked." "I thank you." She fingered the stem of the glass, not lifting her eyes. "But you have belittled me, too. I read it in books, and here on the threshold, as I step outside of books, you meet me with it. We women are always, it seems, poor ships, beating the seas, fleeing capture; and our tackle, our bravery--" She broke off, and sat musing, while her fingers played with the base of the glass. "I take back my metaphors, Miss Josselin. I admit myself no buccaneer, but a simple ass who for once pricked ears on an honest impulse." "That is better. But hush! Mr. Manley, yonder, is preparing to sing." Mr. Manley, a young protege of the Collector's, had a streak of genius as an architect and several lesser gifts, among them a propensity for borrowing and a flexible tenor voice. He trolled an old song, slightly adapted--