"Cora," he said quietly and politely, "I am only going because I must. I couldn't look Mr. Ambrose in the face if I let him down without a fair excuse. But I'll promise this. I'll never go to another party without you, and I give you my solemn word I wouldn't go now if there was a way out." She made no answer. Without looking at him, but with sour rage in her eyes, she threw the end of the cigarette she was smoking into the fire and lit another. The young man was rather short of time, and remembering a former excursion to Bury Street which was yet quite easy to find from the top of the Avenue, he took a taxi. Driving in solitary state he was very nervous and strangely uncomfortable. The evening clothes felt horribly new and conspicuous, and they didn't seem to fit anywhere. Then again he knew this was an adventure of the first magnitude. The bachelor parties of two or three intimate friends were on a different plane from an affair of this kind. However, he determined to thrust unworthy fears aside. There could be no doubt he was far better equipped than he had been before Madame Sadleir took him in hand. Besides, when all was said, the feeling uppermost in his mind just now, outweighing even the black thought of Cora, was a sense of exhilaration. Somehow he felt, as his swift machine crossed Piccadilly Circus, in spite of Cora, in spite of new clothes, in spite of bitter inexperience, that for the first time in his life he was entering the golden realm whose every door had been double-locked, thrice-bolted against him by the dark and evil machinations of destiny. Even when the taxi stopped before the now familiar portals in Bury Street and he had paid the driver his fare, he still had a sense of adventure. And this was heightened by what was going on around him. The magic door was open wide to the night, the august form of Portman, the butler, was framed in it, and at that very moment the Fairy Princess was descending from her chariot. How did he know it was she? Some occult faculty mysteriously told him. She was tall and dark and smiling; a bright blue cloak was round her; he saw a white satin slipper. It was She. Beyond a doubt it was the real Hyde Park lady he was going to take in to dinner. He hung back by the curb, a whole discreet minute, while Mr. Portman received her. She made some smiling remark that Henry Harper couldn't catch. He could only hear the beautiful notes of her voice. They were those of a siren, a low deep music. The Sailor came to the door just as another chariot glided up. He greeted Portman, his old friend, of whom he was still rather in awe, and doffed his coat and hat in the entrance hall without flurry, and then went slowly up the stairs where he found that the butler had already preceded him. Moreover, he was just in time to hear him announce: "Miss Pridmore."