I think Miss Tattersall said "Damn!" Certainly the over-soul of the
staircase group thought it.

"They'll be here all night, at this rate," was my companion's translation
of the general feeling.

"If they have to wake up the chauffeur," I admitted.

"He's a new man they've got," Miss Tattersall replied. "They've only had
him three months..." It seemed as if she were about to add some further
comment, but nothing came.

"Oh!" was all that I found appropriate.

I felt that the action of my opera was hanging fire. Indeed, every one was
beginning to feel it. The Hall door had been shut against the bane of the
night-air. The stimulus of the fragrant night-stock had been excluded.
Miss Tattersall pretended not to yawn. We all pretended that we did not
feel a craving to yawn. The chatter rose and fell spasmodically in short
devitalised bursts of polite effort.

I looked round for Brenda, but could not see her anywhere.

"Won't you come back into the drawing-room?" Mrs. Jervaise was saying to
the Sturtons.

"Oh! thank you, it's _hardly_ worth while, is it?" Mrs. Sturton answered
effusively, but she loosened the shawl that muffled her throat as if she
were preparing for a longer wait. "I'm _so_ sorry," she apologised for the
seventh time. "So very unfortunate after such a really delightful
evening."

They kept up that kind of conversation for quite a long time, while we
listened eagerly for the sound of the motor-horn.

And no motor-horn came; instead, after endlessly tedious minutes, John
returned bearing himself like a portent of disaster.

The confounded fellow whispered again.

"What, not anywhere?" Jervaise asked irritably. "Sure he hasn't gone to
bed?"

John said something in that too discreet voice of his, and then Jervaise
scowled and looked round at the ascending humanity of the staircase. His
son Frank detached himself from the swarm, politely picked his way down
into the Hall, and began to put John under a severe cross-examination.

"What's up now, do you suppose?" Miss Tattersall asked, with the least
tremor of excitement sounding in her voice.

"Perhaps the chauffeur has followed the example of Carter, and afterwards
hidden his shame," I suggested.

I was surprised by the warmth of her contradiction. "Oh, no" she said. "He
isn't the least that sort of man." She said it as if I had aspersed the
character of one of her friends.

"He seems to have gone, disappeared, any-way," I replied.

"It's g