I had not, however, gone twenty steps before I met Ford Obert, who had entered the corridor from the other end and was, as he immediately let me know, on his way to the smoking-room. "Is everyone then dispersing?" "Some of the men, I think," he said, "are following me; others, I believe--wonderful creatures!--have gone to array themselves. Others still, doubtless, have gone to bed." "And the ladies?" "Oh, they've floated away--soared aloft; to high jinks--isn't that the idea?--in their own quarters. Don't they too, at these hours, practise sociabilities of sorts? They make, at any rate, here, an extraordinary picture on that great staircase." I thought a moment. "I wish I had seen it. But I do see it. Yes--splendid. Is the place wholly cleared of them?" "Save, it struck me, so far as they may have left some 'black plume as a token'----" "Not, I trust," I returned, "of any 'lie' their 'soul hath spoken!' But not one of them lingers?" He seemed to wonder. "'Lingers?' For what?" "Oh, I don't know--in this house!" He looked at our long vista, still lighted--appeared to feel with me our liberal ease, which implied that unseen powers waited on our good pleasure and sat up for us. There is nothing like it in fact, the liberal ease at Newmarch. Yet Obert reminded me--if I needed the reminder--that I mustn't after all presume on it. "Was one of them to linger for _you_?" "Well, since you ask me, it was what I hoped. But since you answer for it that my hope has not been met, I bow to a superior propriety." "You mean you'll come and smoke with me? Do then come." "What, if I do," I asked with an idea, "will you give me?" "I'm afraid I can promise you nothing more that _I_ deal in than a bad cigarette." "And what then," I went on, "will you take from me?" He had met my eyes, and now looked at me a little with a smile that I thought just conscious. "Well, I'm afraid I _can't_ take any more----" "Of the sort of stuff," I laughed, "you've already had? Sorry stuff, perhaps--a poor thing but mine own! Such as it is, I only ask to keep it for myself, and that isn't what I meant. I meant what flower will you gather, what havoc will you play----?" "Well?" he said as I hesitated. "Among superstitions that I, after all, cherish. _Mon siège est fait_--a great glittering crystal palace. How many panes will you reward me for amiably sitting up with you by smashing?" It might have been my mere fancy--but it _was_ my fancy--that he looked at me a trifle harder. "How on earth can I tell what you're talking about?" I waited a moment, then went on: "Did you happen to count them?" "Count whom?" "Why, the ladies as they filed up. Was the number there?" He gave a jerk of impatience. "Go and see for yourself!" Once more I just waited. "But suppose I should find Mrs. Server----?" "Prowling there on the chance of you? Well--I thought she was what you wanted."