to be long in the company of people
who passed their lives morally eating suet-pudding, she said. Avoid
stodge, she told me, and, above all, I was to avoid that sentimental,
mawkish, dismal point of view that dramatically wrote up, over
everything, 'Duty,' with a huge D. It happened that there were duties
to be done in life, but they must be accomplished quietly, or gayly,
as the case might be. 'Do not shut the mouth with a snap, and, having
done so, turn the corners down,' she said. 'These habits will not
procure friends for you.' And so I learned to take things gayly."

We were both silent for some time after this. Then Antony exerted
himself to amuse me. We talked as lightly as the skimming of swallows,
flying from one subject to another. We were as happy as laughing
children. The time passed. It seemed but a few minutes when the clock
struck eight.

"You will make me late for dinner!" I exclaimed. "But you reminded me
of grandmamma and the Marquis and made me talk."

"May I come again to-night--to return La Rochefoucauld?" he asked,
with his droll smile.

"I do not know. We shall see." And I ran into my room, leaving him
standing beside the fire.

X

When I got into my bedroom the door was open into Augustus's room
beyond. He had not come up to dress. Indeed, when I was quite ready
to go down to dinner he had not yet appeared.

Half-past eight sounded.

I descended the stairs quickly and went along the passage towards his
"den." There I met his valet.

"Mr. Gurrage is asleep, ma'am," he said, "and does not seem inclined
to wake, ma'am," and he held the door open for me to pass into the
room.

Augustus was lying in his big chair, before the fire, his face
crimson, his mouth wide open, and snoring and breathing very heavily.
He was still in his shooting-things.

An indescribable smell of scorching tweed and spirit pervaded the
room.

By his side was an almost finished glass of whiskey. The bottle stood
on the tray and another bottle lay, broken, on the floor.

Atkinson began clearing up this _debris_.

"Augustus!" I called, but he did not awake. "Augustus, it is time for
dinner!"

"If you please, ma'am," said the valet, coughing respectfully, "if I
might say so, you had better let Mr. Gurrage sleep, ma'am. I'll see
after him. He is--very angry when he is like this and woke suddenly,
ma'am."

I looked at the whiskey bottles and the flushed face. A sickening
disgust overwhelmed me. And th