Most of the guests looked tired. The men made some effort to be cheerful, but the women were frankly jaded and fagged. Bedizened with diamonds, coated with paint and powder, laden with rustling silks, they looked weary and worn out. When spoken to they would struggle to smile, but the smiles would break down after a moment into dismal looks of misery and oppression. “Had enough?” whispered Lord Robert to Drake. Drake was satisfied, and Lord Robert began to make their excuses. “Going already!” said Mrs. Macrae. “An official engagement, you say?--Mr. Drake, is it? Oh, don't tell me! I know--_I_ know! Well, you'll be married and settled one of these days--and then!” They were in a hansom cab driving across London in the direction of Bartimaeus's Hospital. Drake was bare-headed and fanning himself with his crush hat. Lord Robert was lighting a cigarette. “Pshaw! What a stifling den! Did you ever hear such a clitter-clatter? A perfect Tower of Babel building company! What in the name of common sense do people suppose they're doing by penning themselves up like that on a night like this? What are they thinking about?” “Thinking about, dear boy? You're unreasonable! Nobody wants to think about anything in such scenes of charming folly.” “But the women! Did you _ever_ see such faded, worn-out dummies for the display of diamonds? Poor little women in their splendid misery! I was sorry for your _fiancée_, Robert. She was the only woman in the house without that hateful stamp of worldliness and affectation.” “My dear Drake, you've learned many things, but there's one thing you have not yet learned--you haven't learned how to take serious things as trifles, and trifles as serious things. Learn it, my boy, or you'll embitter existence. You are not going to alter the conditions of civilization by any change in your own particular life; so just look out the prettiest, wittiest, wealthiest little woman who is a dummy for the display of diamonds----” “Me? Not if I know it, old fellow! Give me a little nature and simplicity, if it hasn't got a second gown to its back.” “All right--as you like,” said Lord Robert, flinging out the end of his cigarette. “You've got the pull of some of us--you can please yourself. And here we are at old Bartimaeus's, and this is a very different pair of shoes!” They were driving out of one of London's main thoroughfares, through a groined archway, into one of London's ancient buildings with its quiet quadrangle where trees grow and birds sing. Every window of the square was lighted up, and there was a low murmur of music being played within. “Listen!” said Lord Robert. “I am here ostensibly as the guest of the visiting physician, don't you know, but really in the interests of the little friend I told you of.” “The one I got the tickets for last week?” “Precisely.”