At this moment, being very near to tears, the light was switched off. She seemed to be drowning in dark. That was a favourite trick of Lancelot's, who had no business, as a matter of fact, in his father's room. It gave her a moment of tender joy, and for another she played with the thought of him, tiptoeing towards her. Suddenly, all in the dark, she felt a man's arms about her, and a man's lips upon hers. To wild alarm succeeded warm gratitude. Lucy sobbed ever so lightly; her head fell back before the ardent advance; her eyes closed. With parted lips she drank deep of a new consolation: her heart drummed a tune to which, as it seemed, her wings throbbed the answer. The kiss was a long one--perhaps a full thirty seconds--but she was released all too soon. He left her as he had come, on silent feet. The light was turned up; everything looked as it had been, but everything was not. She was not. She found herself an Ariadne, in a drawing-room, still lax from Theseus' arms. Yes, but Theseus was next door, and would come back to her. To say that she was touched is to say little. She was more elated than touched, and more interested than either. How utterly romantic, how perfectly sweet, how thoughtful, how ardent of James! James, of all people in the world! Her husband, of course: but who knew better than she what that office had implied--and who less than she what it must have hidden? Really, was it true? Could it be true? For some time she sat luxurious where she had been left, gloating (the word is fairly used) over this new treasure. But then she jumped up and looked at herself in the glass, curiously, quizzingly, and even perhaps shamefaced. Next she laughed, richly and from a full heart. "My dear girl, it's not hard to see what has happened to you. You've been--" Not even in her thoughts did she care to end the sentence. But those shining dark eyes, that air of floating, of winged feet--"Ha, my dear, upon my word! At thirty-one, my child. Really, it becomes you uncommonly." She found herself now walking swiftly up and down the room, clasping and unclasping her hands. To think that James--the last man in the world--had kept this up his coat-sleeve for years--and at last--! And how like the dear thing to turn the light out! To save his own face, of course, for he must have known, even _he_ must have known, that _she_ wouldn't have cared. She would have liked the light--to see his eyes! There had been no eyeglass this time, anyhow. But that was it. That was a man's romance. In _Cupid and Psyche_, it had been Psyche who had wanted to know, to see. Women were like that. Such realists. And, as Psyche was, they were always sorry for it afterwards. Well, bless him, he should love her in the dark, or how he pleased.