But the hours turned round at last to five o'clock, and found me hidden like a conspirator in the little alcove off the drawing-room. This was unlighted; it was little more than an archway in fact, with a few feet of space behind, but with the dusk in it and the lit drawing-room beyond I had no fear that even Sir Rupert's unflinching old eyes, as I remembered them, would discover me. I had placed Lady O'Brien with her back to me and the tea-table before her, and had drawn a chair near the lamplight for Sir Rupert, for I had a great desire to see our old enemy's face during the interview that was to be so momentous to poor Essie. I had not long to wait, for he was punctual to his time. He came in, a curious figure for a lady's drawing-room, in a great rough old frieze coat such as the farmers wear at the fairs. As he sat down heavily in the chair I had placed for him I saw that he looked older, but scarcely weaker than I remembered him. If a tithe of the stories told about his way of life were true, then he had a constitution of iron. I saw the gleam of his eyes fixed on my lady's face, and felt that I was going to watch a game of fence. In the heat of the room his coat began to steam, and Lady O'Brien implored him to take it off. He did so, flinging it across a velvet chair, and showed himself clad in a riding suit of very ancient cut, in which, however, he looked a figure of a certain distinction. Then he sat down again and leant towards his hostess, bringing his strong, colourless, old face, with its jaws of iron, within the rays of the lamp. Lady O'Brien had dressed herself for the interview with a certain coquettishness. Dear old lady, it would indeed be the end of things with her when her pretty vanities were relinquished. She was wearing a gray, stiff silk, trimmed with the most exquisite old yellow lace, and her soft hair was piled high over her delicate face with its sparkling eyes. I could not see her face, of course, from where I sat, but I could see the flash and glitter of her rings as her still-beautiful hands moved to and fro among the tea-cups. "I may offer you some tea, Sir Rupert?" I heard her say. "Well, madam, tea is not much in my line," he answered grimly. "It is a good many years since I have known the taste of it, in fact." "Oh, Sir Rupert, you men!" said the little old lady, lifting a reproving finger; "it is well for you I know your ways." She took from a lower tray of her tea-table a little bottle gold-coloured, and a liqueur glass. "This is the finest old brandy, Sir Rupert," she said. "I won't insult you and it by asking if you will take soda-water with it." "Brandy is quite good enough for me," he answered. "You were always a woman of a thousand." "Ah! Sir Rupert, you flatter me," said the old lady, sipping her tea. "If the truth is flattery," he said, "it is the truth that beauty and wit are seldom found in one garland."