The great night came. It was quarter to nine. The ball was at its wildest. Never had more daringly original costumes mingled in more unexpected combinations! The society newspapers’ reporters looked on at a loss to convey some impression of how _outré_, how _bizarre_, was this spectacle of Pierrots dancing with Dutch girls, Cavaliers with Carmens, Asiatic princes of dusky hue with periwigged Pompadours of a bygone age. But all of the gay assemblage, with all their fantasy and all their strangeness, were eclipsed by the appearance of Gaveston ffoulis, framed in the great Gothic doorway of the oak-lined Hall. “What is he?” demanded the agog dancers, thronging around him. “What are you?” asked those of his delighted intimates within speaking distance. All eyes sparkled to behold his young upstanding body, tanned at the neck by the Oxfordshire sun. And a thrill of that bewilderment which is the sincerest form of flattery ran through the historic Hall when the unimaginable answer rang out: “A nympholept!” It was a great night.… * * * * * Next morning the Penhaligon party vacated their suite at the Mitre. To the last, Gaveston showed himself abrim with merry conceits, and, with cordial assurances that there was no better way of returning to London, he installed his parting guests in a train at the London and North Western Railway Company’s commodious station. It steamed out with a chorus of grateful farewells, and when it faded from view Gav turned to the still waving David with one parting witticism. “They’ll have to change at Bletchley,” he said. Eights Week was over. CHAPTER X OPEN DIAPASON Six weeks later, in the musky fragrance of an August twilight, Gaveston sat on the rocky cliffs above Ploumenar’ch-lez-Quémouk. For there, in a charming old-world cottage of Breton gneiss, a brilliant reading party from Wallace, under Mongo’s supervision, had assembled for the vacation. He gazed out over the dark malachite waste of Atlantic waters, reflecting how successful his choice of a _venue_ had proved, and hummed softly the third act of “Tristan und Isolde.” “Dear old Wagner!” he murmured. Discussion over the various possibilities had been lively one night in Mongo’s room during the Commemorative Week which so satisfactorily rounded off that marvellous summer term. Mongo opted for Minorca, but Monty Wytham vetoed that as too Chopinesque. “But my uncle might lend us a bothy at Tober-na-Vuolich,” ventured the Marquis of Kirkcudbright (Ch. Ch.), hexametrically enough. But his poetic ambitions and simple tastes were only too well known. There was an uncomfortable silence. He shuffled his feet. “Connemara?” put in Monty, after a moment’s reflection. “Or the Lizard?” queried Peter Creek. “The Broads?” tried Monty again, doubling. “The Downs?” “The Lake of Lucerne?” Hard upon each other came the enterprising suggestions, but for each of them Gaveston had an objection as conclusive as it was witty.[18]