THE "drawing-room" that evening lacked not only distinction but animation as well. To begin with, the attendance was small. The Marchioness, after the usual collaboration with Julia in advance of the gathering, received a paltry half-dozen during the course of the evening. The Princess was there, and Count Antonio,--(he rarely missed coming), and the Hon. Mrs. Priestley-Duff. Lord Eric Temple and Lady Jane Thorne were missing, as were Prince Waldemar de Bosky, Count Wilhelm von Blitzen and the Countess du Bara. Extreme dulness prevailed. The Princess fell asleep, and, on being roused at a seasonable hour, declared that her eyes had been troubling her of late, so she kept them closed as much as possible on account of the lights. Mrs. Priestley-Duff, being greatly out-of-sorts, caustically remarked that the proper way to treat bothersome eyes is to put them to bed in a sound-proof room. Cricklewick yawned in the foyer, Moody yawned in the outer hall, and McFaddan in the pantry. The latter did not yawn luxuriously. There was something half-way about it. "Why don't you 'ave it out?" inquired Moody, sympathetically, after solicitous inquiry. "They say the bloomin' things are the cause of all the rheumatism we're 'aving nowadays. Is it a wisdom tooth?" "No," said McFaddan, with a suddenness that startled Moody; "it ain't. It's a whole jaw. It's a dam' fool jaw at that." "Now that I look at you closer," said Moody critically, "it seems to be a bit discoloured. Looks as though mortification had set in." "Ye never said a truer thing," said McFaddan. "It set in last night." The man from Scotland Yard waited across the street until he saw the lights in the windows of the third, fourth and fifth floors go out, and then strolled patiently away. Queer looking men and women came under his observation during the long and lonely vigil, entering and emerging from the darkened doorway across the street, but none of them, by any chance, bore the slightest resemblance to the elusive Lord Temple, or "her ladyship," the secretary. He made the quite natural error of putting the queer looking folk down as tailors and seamstresses who worked far into the night for the prosperous Deborah. Two days went by. He sat at a window in the hotel opposite and waited for the young lady to appear. On three separate occasions he followed her to Central Park and back. She was a brisk walker. She had the free stride of the healthy English girl. He experienced some difficulty in keeping her in sight, but even as he puffed laboriously behind, he was conscious of a sort of elation. It was good to see some one who walked as if she were in Hyde Park.