Some people ask what is the good of “standing high?” Certainly you get on much better, in society at least, if you creep low, and crawl on very humble all-fours to the feet of the latest _demi-mondaine_, provided she be of the aristocracy. If you know how to condone the vulgarity of a prince and call his vices virtue, if you can pardon the blackguardism of a duke and speak of him as a “gentleman,” in spite of the fact that he is not fit to be tolerated among decent-minded people, you are sure to “get on,” as the phrase goes. To keep oneself morally clean is a kind of offence nowadays; but methinks I shall continue to offend!’ She passed her hand across her forehead dreamily. ‘Something has confused and stunned me; I cannot quite realise what it is. I think I had an idol somewhere, set up on a pedestal of gold; it has suddenly tumbled down of its own accord!’ She smiled vaguely. ‘It is not broken yet, but it has certainly fallen!’ That night, when Lord Carlyon returned about one o’clock, he found the house dark and silent. No one was waiting up for him but his valet, a discreet and sober individual who knew his master’s secrets and kept them; not at all because he respected his master, but because he respected his master’s wife. And the semi-obscurity and grave solitude of his home irritated ‘Beauty’ Carlyon to a most inconsistent degree, inasmuch as he had himself telegraphed to Delicia that she was not to sit up for him. ‘Where is her ladyship?’ he demanded haughtily. ‘Did she go out this evening?’ Gravely the valet assisted him to pull off his opera coat as he replied,— ‘No, sir—my lord, I mean—her ladyship dined alone, and retired early. I believe the maid said her ladyship was in bed by ten.’ Carlyon grumbled something inaudible and went upstairs. Outside his wife’s room he paused and tried the handle of her bedroom door; it was locked. Surprised and angry, he rapped smartly on the panels; there was no answer save a low, fierce growl from Spartan, who, suddenly rising from his usual post on the landing outside his mistress’s sleeping chamber, manifested unusual and extraordinary signs of temper. ‘Down, you fool!’ muttered Carlyon, addressing the huge beast. ‘Lie down, or it will be the worse for you!’ But Spartan remained erect, with ears flattened and white teeth a-snarl, and Carlyon, after rapping once more vainly at the closed door, gave it up as a bad job and retired to his own private room. ‘Never knew her so dead asleep before,’ he grumbled. ‘She generally stays awake till I come home.’