He took both her hands, and the flow of melody ceased upon an unexpected discord. Then came silence—the thrilling silence of surprise. Lolling gracefully upon the baby grand, my friend toyed with the black ribbon upon which his monocle dangles and glanced toward Mrs. Pointzby-North. “My dear Mrs. North, as a very old and quite absurdly privileged friend, might I address a few words to everybody, without annoyance to you?” Mrs. Pointzby-North, fluttering somewhat: “My _dear_ Captain O’Hagan! As if you _could_ offend me, however hard you tried!” O’Hagan inclined his head, and raised the monocle to survey the expectant ring of guests. Then: “Good folks, Miss Pamela Crichton is so well worth listening to, that I beg you will preserve a perfect quiet whilst she is playing. Believe me, you will be well repaid, and will furthermore confer upon Mrs. North and upon myself a favour which we shall deeply appreciate!” Pamela performed amid a throbbing silence which would have gratified Sarah Bernhardt. But I divined how in future the doors of Mrs. Pointzby-North would be closed to Miss Crichton. (“It is better,” O’Hagan explained to me, when we had seen the girl to a cab. “I do not desire that Pamela be treated as a public exhibit.”) Replace the famous cloak with a toga, and in O’Hagan you have a very complete patrician—an aristocrat of sensibilities so exquisite that the trifling errors of good society jar upon them more harshly than the eating of peas with a knife upon the atrophied perceptions of the merely respectable. After dinner that evening Sir Roger Rundel called upon O’Hagan in his chambers. My friend’s chambers overlook Whitehall, and, in his moments of ease, he is always to be found in the room which he calls his library, but whose appointments more nearly correspond with those of a harêm. To visitors but superficially acquainted with O’Hagan, this apartment proves a surprise. Its arabesques dimly perceptible in the blue rays of a hanging lamp, the plash of water in a tiny marble basin enhancing the illusion that one has lost one’s way, this _mandarah_ possesses all the charms of the unexpected. For golden carp in the basin you are of course prepared? Prepare, further, for O’Hagan in a loose blue robe, O’Hagan extended upon a cushioned divan, sipping coffee from a tiny porcelain cup and enjoying the solace of tumbâk in a Persian narghli. Donohue, a model man, immaculate, in immaculate black, proclaimed the arrival, and ushered in the person, of Sir Roger. You would like Sir Roger Rundel; bronzed, well groomed, reserved, forty-five; he is what we mean by a typical English gentleman. He and O’Hagan are old friends. Donohue made fresh _kahweh_ (no one expects whisky in the _mandarah_), whilst Sir Roger selected from the rack an amber mouthpiece neatly labelled “R.R.” and appropriated the guest’s tube of the narghli. O’Hagan: “Been hoping to see you every day since I heard of your return, Rundel.”