The German diplomatist took Cecil in to dinner, and she found herself seated a very long way from Major Gordon, who was quite hidden from her by a barrier of hothouse flowers, crystallised fruits, and oxydised silver candelabra. There was a little interval in the drawing-room after the long elaborate banquet, during which Flo and the rest of the amateur performers disappeared from the horizon. There were constant arrivals of people who came from short distances to assist at the private theatricals, and the room filled rapidly in this interregnum. And in all the time Major Gordon and Cecil O'Boyneville happened to be at different ends of the long room, almost as far apart as they had been with the Overland journey between them, Cecil thought, as she caught glimpses of the familiar figure now and then at the end of a long vista. There was rather a longer interval than had been anticipated, and Mr. Lobyer, lounging in his favourite attitude against one of the mantelpieces, looked at his watch more than once with a disagreeable sneer upon his face. "Half-past ten," he said, "and these amateurs were to have begun at ten. I suppose Evershed has lost his boots--or his memory--at the last moment; or my wife has set fire to her wig, or the machinery of the curtains is found to be unmanageable, or there is something agreeable of that kind in the wind. I never knew people make fools of themselves in this way that they didn't come to grief in some manner." But Mr. Lobyer's forebodings were not realised. The door was flung open presently, and a solemn butler announced that the performance was about to commence; whereupon there was considerable rejoicing and some little bustle. The German diplomatist again presented himself to Cecil, and escorted by that gentleman, she made her way to the billiard-room, where, in the confusion attendant on the placing of some fifty or sixty people, she had little time to notice who occupied the seat next her. It was only when the rustling of silk and fluttering of tulle, the whispering and exclaiming, the questioning and answering, and entreating and refusing, and all the polite squabbling was over, and every one fairly settled, that Cecil glanced towards the person on her right hand. Her heart had been beating at an abnormal pace all the evening; but perhaps it beat a little faster when she perceived that her right-hand neighbour was Major Gordon. They were to be seated side by side during the performance of a five-act comedy--for two hours at least--so near that when he moved his arm in unfolding his perfumed programme he stirred the airy puffings of her dress. As yet he was--or appeared to be unconscious of her presence, and was listening deferentially to Miss Evershed's animated discourse; for though that young lady was apt to express herself very strongly in reprobation of the husband-hunting propensities of other girls, she was renowned as one of the most desperate flirts in the county.