"Of course, certainly, by all means," Jervaise agreed warmly, and then, to John, "He hasn't gone to bed yet, I suppose?" "I saw him not half an hour ago, sir," was John's response. "Tell him to bring the motor round," Jervaise ordered, and added something in a lower voice, which, near as I was to them, I could not catch. I imagined that it might be an instruction to have the chauffeur out again if he had by any chance slunk off to bed within the last half-hour. I think Miss Tattersall said "Damn!" Certainly the over-soul of the staircase group thought it. "They'll be here all night, at this rate," was my companion's translation of the general feeling. "If they have to wake up the chauffeur," I admitted. "He's a new man they've got," Miss Tattersall replied. "They've only had him three months..." It seemed as if she were about to add some further comment, but nothing came. "Oh!" was all that I found appropriate. I felt that the action of my opera was hanging fire. Indeed, every one was beginning to feel it. The Hall door had been shut against the bane of the night-air. The stimulus of the fragrant night-stock had been excluded. Miss Tattersall pretended not to yawn. We all pretended that we did not feel a craving to yawn. The chatter rose and fell spasmodically in short devitalised bursts of polite effort. I looked round for Brenda, but could not see her anywhere. "Won't you come back into the drawing-room?" Mrs. Jervaise was saying to the Sturtons. "Oh! thank you, it's _hardly_ worth while, is it?" Mrs. Sturton answered effusively, but she loosened the shawl that muffled her throat as if she were preparing for a longer wait. "I'm _so_ sorry," she apologised for the seventh time. "So very unfortunate after such a really delightful evening." They kept up that kind of conversation for quite a long time, while we listened eagerly for the sound of the motor-horn. And no motor-horn came; instead, after endlessly tedious minutes, John returned bearing himself like a portent of disaster. The confounded fellow whispered again. "What, not anywhere?" Jervaise asked irritably. "Sure he hasn't gone to bed?" John said something in that too discreet voice of his, and then Jervaise scowled and looked round at the ascending humanity of the staircase. His son Frank detached himself from the swarm, politely picked his way down into the Hall, and began to put John under a severe cross-examination. "What's up now, do you suppose?" Miss Tattersall asked, with the least tremor of excitement sounding in her voice. "Perhaps the chauffeur has followed the example of Carter, and afterwards hidden his shame," I suggested. I was surprised by the warmth of her contradiction. "Oh, no" she said. "He isn't the least that sort of man." She said it as if I had aspersed the character of one of her friends. "He seems to have gone, disappeared, any-way," I replied.