“Is Lord Alistair at home?” the Duke demanded sharply, incensed by this reception. “He’s engaged,” said the boy glibly, giving the Duke a cautious look. “What name, please?” “The Duke of Trent. I am his lordship’s brother,” returned the Home Secretary, frowning. “Oh, that’s all right, my lord--I mean Your Grace,” the page responded, with an air of relief. “Come in, please.” And, scarcely giving the visitor time to remove his hat, he threw open the door of the room from whence the sounds had proceeded, and announced him. The new-comer took two steps through the doorway, and stopped astounded. He had arrived on the scene of a festivity. Around a dining-table, crowded with a confusion of dessert-dishes, champagne-bottles, coffee-cups, cigar-boxes, and spirit-stands, with the ashes of innumerable cigars and cigarettes soaking in the spilt wine and coffee on the tablecloth, were seated some seven or eight men, most of them young, all wearing evening dress, and seeming to be in the highest spirits. At the head of the table, facing the Duke as he came in, the woman he had come to snatch his brother away from lolled back in her chair, puffing a cigarette, her hands monstrously encumbered with coloured stones, and her powdered bosom resplendent with five or six chains of jewellery. At the foot of the table, beside the door by which James had just entered, the brother he had come to pardon and to redeem turned languidly in his seat, and, rising with studied nonchalance, removed a cigar from his lips to say: “That you, Trent? So good of you to join us.” And, turning to the company again, he added the careless introduction: “My brother.” His second glance round the room had warned the angry Duke that, however he might be disposed to treat Molly Finucane, her guests were not men whom he had any right to object to meet. Too well-bred to make a scene under the circumstances, he choked down his indignation, and, after a haughty bow, which neither included nor excluded the lady of the house, he accepted the chair which someone offered him. It was with a sense of satisfaction not unmingled with surprise that the Secretary of State discovered on sitting down that his neighbour was a personal acquaintance, the great Mendes, head of the South American Bank, and a financier with whom Cabinet Ministers were obliged to reckon. Lord Alistair vouchsafed a light word of explanation. “Been having a little feed to celebrate my smash,” he said, waving his hand over the dirty table. “These are my friends. You see before you the members of the Dishonourable Brotherhood of Decadents, an association for the spread of corruption among the upper classes. Dishonourable Brother St. John, I call upon you for a speech.” “What on earth is all this?” the Duke demanded in a whisper of his neighbour. The millionaire shrugged his shoulders, as though he were slightly ashamed of his company.