Lord Considine's voice calling, "I say, shall we go on--or do you think you had better go in?" sounded a very homely note. Her Eros still held her, even as she answered, "Perhaps we had better turn back now. I could stop out forever on such a night. It has been more beautiful than I can say." Approval of the sentiment expressed was stamped upon her. For a moment of wild surrender she clung as she kissed; then she was gently relinquished, and the lord was at hand. "There's nothing quite like it, is there?" he said. "I've heard astounding orchestras of birds in South America; but nothing at all like this--which, moreover, seems to me at its best in England. In Granada, up there in the Wellington elms, they absolutely--mind, mind, here's a briar-root--they shout at you. There's a brazen hardihood about them. In Athens, too, in the King's Garden, it is a kind of clamour of sound--like an Arab wedding. No, no, I say that we are unrivalled for nightingales." The enthusiastic man galloped on, and Lucy, throbbing in the dark, was grateful to him. The lights of the house recalled her to the world. Presently, up the slope, she saw Vera Nugent, at the piano, turning to say something to somebody. It was James, rather bored in an arm-chair. James liked neither the society of women nor the notes of a piano. But he liked still less for such things to be known of him. His own social standard may perhaps be put thus: he liked to appear bored without boring his companions. On the whole he flattered himself that, high as it was, he nearly always reached it. "Where's my beautiful young brother?" said Lord Considine, plunging in upon them. "Asleep, I'll take my oath. My dear Vera, you are too easy with him. The man is getting mountainous. You two little know what you've missed--hey, Mrs. Macartney?" He was obviously overheated, but completely at ease with himself. "What do you say we have missed?" Vera asked of James, and he now, on his feet, said bravely, "For myself, a nasty chill." A chill--out there! * * * * * Lucy was asked, Did she like it all, and boldly owned, All. "The dark is like an eiderdown bed. Impossible to imagine anything softer." She rubbed her eyes. "It has made me dreadfully sleepy," she said. "I think, if you won't be horrified--" Vera said that she should go up with her. James stooped to her cheek, Lord Considine bowed over her hand.