As we drifted uncomfortably about the house, I found it expedient to leave at least this charge unanswered. The smoking-room was given up to bridge, the dining-room to an endless supper; musicians, whom in time I came to suspect our butler of keeping on a chain in one of the cellars, were imprisoned on a landing: and both drawing-rooms were cleared for dancing. “_Solitudinem faciunt: pacem appellant._ I’m off,” said Bertrand in bewilderment. “Promise you won’t invite me again!” And I shared his bewilderment. The success of the party, as of the late war, lay in unity of command. Our butler was _generalissimo_; and Barbara asked only that I would leave him alone. If the men could not find cigars, they appealed to Robson; when an uninvited guest strayed into the hall, demanding who the guy was who was giving this show, Robson introduced him promptly to his hostess; I saw him supplying powder and carrying out repairs to torn dresses; and, when our musicians knocked off work for the night, Robson obliged at the piano, apologizing for the slow, melodious waltzes of my undergraduate days and regretting that he had no temperament for jazz-music. “I _wish_ I knew his history,” Barbara murmured plaintively. “I daren’t ask for fear of finding he has a wife. That would break my heart, because I’m determined to marry him if anything happens to you, George.” Lady Dainton, meanwhile, was going from strength to strength of disapproval. “I would sooner give up society altogether,” she announced, “than countenance its present form. This, of course, is different,” she added vaguely and without conviction. Mentally, I acquiesced in her condemnation. And it was not worth while to explain that I assisted at these beanfeasts because I believed they amused Barbara. 3 “This is what remains,” I told Bertrand, when he insisted on holding a _post mortem_. “These people don’t _amuse_ you?,” he cried. “They interest me,” I answered. “Looking on, listening . . .”