He lay back, sent funnels of smoke to the ceiling, and then said, with a laugh like a gurgle: “I'm not likely to, though. That eternal dun was here again to-day. I had to tell him that the marriage would come off in a year certain. That was the only understanding on which he would agree to wait for his money. Bad? Of course it's bad; but what would you have, dear boy?” The men smoked in silence for a moment, and then Lord Robert said again: “Come, old fellow, for friendship's sake, if nothing else. She's a decent little woman, and dead bent on having you at her house to-night. And if you're badly bored we'll not stay long. We'll come away early and--listen--we'll slip across to the Nurses' Ball at Bartimaeus's Hospital; there'll be fun enough there, at all events.” “I'll go,” said Drake. Half an hour later the two young men were driving up to the door of Mrs. Macrae's house in Belgrave Square. There was a line of carriages in front of it, and they had to wait their turn to approach the gate. Footmen in gorgeous livery were ready to open the cab door, to help the guests across the red baize that lay on the pavement, to usher them into the hall, to lead them to the little marble chamber where they entered their names in a list intended for the next day's _Morning Post_, and finally to direct them to the great staircase where the general crush moved slowly up to the saloon above. In the well of the stairs, half hidden behind a little forest of palms and ferns, a band in yellow and blue uniform sat playing the people in. On the landing the hostess stood waiting to receive, and many of the guests, by a rotary movement like the waters of a maelstrom, moved past her in a rapid and babbling stream, twisted about her, and came down again. She welcomed Lord Robert effusively, and motioned to him to stand by her side. Then she introduced her daughter to Drake and sent them adrift through the rooms. The rooms were large ones with parquet flooring from which all furniture had been removed, except the palms and ferns by the walls and the heavy chandeliers overhead. It was not yet ten o'clock, but already the house was crowded, and every moment there were floods of fresh arrivals. First came statesmen and diplomatists, then people who had been to the theatres, and toward the end of the evening some of the actors themselves. The night was close and the atmosphere hot and oppressive. At the farther end of the suite there was a refreshment-room with its lantern lights pulled open; and there the crush was densest and the commotion greatest. The click-clack of many voices cut the thick air as with a thousand knives, and over the multitudinous clatter there was always the unintelligible boom of the band downstairs.