sat down again in a corner of the room, resolved to keep a check upon
myself, but to stay awhile.

The rector was the first in, humming a song, and spied me.

"Ho!" he cried, "will you drink, Richard? Or do I drink with you?"

He was already purple with wine.

"God save me from you and your kind!" I replied.

"'Sblood! what a devil's nest of fireworks!" he exclaimed, as he went
off down the room, still humming, to where the rest were gathered. And
they were soon between bottle and stopper, and quips a-coursing. There
was the captain of the Thunderer, Collinson by name, Lord Comyn and two
brother officers, Will Fotheringay, my cousin Philip, openly pleased
to be found in such a company, and some dozen other toadeaters who
had followed my Lord a-chair and a-foot from the ball, and would have
tracked him to perdition had he chosen to go; and lastly Tom Swain,
leering and hiccoughing at the jokes, in such a beastly state of
drunkenness as I had rarely seen him. His Lordship recognized me and
smiled, and was pushing his chair back, when something Collinson said
seemed to restrain him.

I believe I was the butt of more than one jest for my aloofness, though
I could not hear distinctly for the noise they made. I commanded some
French cognac, and kept my eye on the rector, and the sight of him was
making me dangerous.

I forgot the advice I had received, and remembered only the months he
had goaded me. And I was even beginning to speculate how I could best
pick a quarrel with him on any issue but politics, when an unexpected
incident diverted me. Of a sudden the tall, ungainly form of Percy
Singleton filled the doorway, wrapped in a greatcoat. He swept the room
at a glance, and then strode rapidly toward the corner where I sat.

"I had thought to find you here," he said, and dropped into a chair
beside me. I offered him wine, but he refused.

"Now," he went on, "what has Patty done?"

"What have I done that I should be publicly insulted?" I cried.

"Insulted!" says he, "and did she insult you? She said nothing of that."

"What brings you here, then?" I demanded.

"Not to talk, Richard," he said quietly, "'tis no time tonight. I came
to fetch you home. Patty sent me."

Patty sent him! Why had Patty sent him? But this I did not ask, for I
felt the devil within me.

"We must first finish this bottle," said I, offhand, "and then I have a
little something to be done which I have set my heart upon. After that I
will