The masked ball at the opera-house was the gayest scene in London. Every one was there, and royalty was conspicuous, first in the person of the old King, "a taciturn, rather splenetic elderly gentleman," in a snuff-coloured suit with silk stockings to match, no finery but his blue ribbon and diamond shoe-buckles, accompanied as usual by her maypole Grace of Kendal, lank, ungainly, and plain, but dear to Majesty by long habit, homely Joan to royal Darby. Her grace reigned alone since the death of the Countess of Darlington, another German lady with English title and estates, who had fattened upon the wealth of Britannia; an obese elderly person, with round staring black eyes, reputed to have been in early life an amazing beauty. The more well informed of the German courtiers believed the tie between this lady and the King to be purely platonic, that she was indeed his Majesty's half-sister – an illegitimate daughter of the old Elector by his infamous mistress, the Countess of Platen.

The young Court, too, was there: handsome, high-bred Caroline, with her fine aquiline features and her clear, far-seeing eyes; meek Mrs. Howard, with a long-suffering air of submission to royal caprices, not by any means the triumphant style of a maîtresse en titre; brilliant hoydenish Mary Bellenden, now Mrs. Campbell; and sparkling Frenchified Mary Lepel, wife of John Lord Hervey; Chesterfield, airing his new title, and laying about him ruthlessly with that reckless wit which spared neither friend nor kinsfolk, heedless how deep he cut; affecting the airs of a universal conqueror also, pretending even to favours from women of the highest fashion, rank, and beauty, despite a squat ungainly person and an ugly face.

Herrick entered late upon this brilliant scene. He had waited to finish his work at the newspaper office, a dark little printer's workshop near Smithfield, and had hastily washed off the grime of the City and flung on a domino over his every-day clothes. It was a kind of pilgrim's cloak which he wore, and he had put on a pilgrim's hat like Romeo's, and carried a pilgrim's staff, when he went in quest of his Juliet.

For the first quarter of an hour his keen eyes failed to distinguish her amidst that ever-moving, ever-changing mob of masqueraders: princes and peasants, soldiers and chimney-sweepers, French cooks, Italian harlequins and columbines, Venetians, Turks, Dutchmen, and Roman emperors. The glitter and confusion of that undulating crowd, swaying to the sound of lightest music, baffled and bewildered him; but all of a sudden, in the stately movements of a minuet, he saw a form which at a glance revealed the slender gracefulness of his wood-nymph. No other form he had ever seen upon this earth had that airy motion and exquisitely unconscious elegance.

Yes, it was she, dressed as Diana, with a diamond crescent upon her brow, and her soft auburn hair coiled at the back of the perfectly shaped head, a careless curl or two hanging loosely from the coils. Her classic drapery of white and silver clothed her modestly from shoulder to ankle, revealing only the slender feet in silver sandals. In an age of monstrous headdresses and naked shoulders, powder and patches, that classic form and simply braided hair had all the charm of singularity.

Herrick glanced from his beloved to her partner. A slim, elegant-looking man in a Venetian suit, black velvet and gold, with jewelled stiletto – Lavendale without doubt. Yes, that was his dashing air of unconquerable self-possession, the easy consciousness of superiority. He offered his hand to his partner when the dance was over, and led her through the crowd, talking to her animatedly as they moved along. Herrick could see that he was pointing out the celebrities in the mob, giving his tongue full license as he described their characteristics, no doubt in a series of antitheses, as was the fashion in those days, when a modish wit depicted every man or woman of his acquaintance as a bundle of opposite qualities, a creature made up of contradictions, and as impossible as sphinx or chimæra.

Herrick followed them closely. He was able to follow unobserved in that crowded assembly; moreover it was a legitimate action to follow any woman at a masquerade. The entertainment was invented for assignations and imbroglios, mystifications and illicit love-making. He followed close enough to hear the drift of his friend's conversation, if not the very words, and it relieved that sore heart of his to be assured that there was no serious love in all that flow of talk, only gallantry and compliment, scandal and satire.

"There goes my Lord Chesterfield, who just escapes being as ugly as Caliban, with that huge Polyphemus head of his, yet affects elegance and pretends to be irresistible with women. Heidegger himself – the ugliest man in London – might almost as fitly assume the airs of an Adonis. But there is Carteret, the most accomplished man in England, with more languages in his head than were ever spoken at Babel; I must seize an opportunity for presenting him to you. He is a great man, and would be a great minister if Walpole were not jealous of him. Have you seen Mrs. Howard – the shepherdess in pink – forty years old, and as deaf as a post? Her royal shepherd was glaring at us from that box yonder while you were dancing. And at the back of that large box over the stage you may see Majesty itself, sitting in shadow with a couple of Turks in attendance upon him, and the Duchess of Kendal in the front of the box."

"I thought kings and princes would have a grander air, would stand out more from the common people," said Rena. "I did not expect to see the King in his royal robes and crown, but I am vexed to find him so very plain-looking and humdrum! I don't believe Charles I. had ever that common look."

"We only know Charles as Vandyke painted him," said Lavendale. "I daresay were I to conjure up his ghost for you, in his habit as he lived, you would find him a somewhat insignificant person, with a long narrow face and attenuated features. You would not recognise in him the kingly figure on the white horse before which you stood so admiringly at Hampton Court Palace yesterday. But let us talk of something more interesting than kings and emperors. Let us talk of our dear selves. I have a very serious theme to discuss with you, and I thought in this light mock world, where every one is bent upon folly, you and I would be more alone than in a wood. Dare I speak freely, Irene? Will it be to seal my doom if I venture boldly?"

He had drawn the slight figure nearer to his side with a sudden caressing movement, favoured by the jostling of the crowd. Durnford grew savagely angry at that bold caress, and could scarce restrain himself from laying violent hands upon his friend; would not, perhaps, have forborne to part them, had not Rena herself started away with a half-frightened, half-indignant gesture.

But lo! at that very moment, just as Lavendale turned lightly towards the retreating nymph, bold as Apollo in pursuit of Daphne, he started and stood stock-still, as if changed into stone by some apparition of terror.

And yet it was not a terrific vision. It was only a woman, passing tall among women, with the form and carriage of Juno; a woman in a Turkish dress, glittering from brow to waistband with a galaxy of diamonds, which flashed from the gorgeous background of an embroidered robe. The lovely arms, of Parian whiteness, were bare to the shoulder; the lovely bust was but little hidden by the loose outer robe and narrow inner vest of cloth of gold. A long gauze veil fell from the jewelled turban which the lady wore, in proud defiance, or in happy ignorance, of Oriental restrictions.

This sultana of the hour was Lady Judith Topsparkle, and it was but the second time Lavendale had met her since they parted in the little Chinese room at Lady Skirmisham's.

While he stood dumfounded, scarce daring to lift his eyes to those flashing orbs which were shining upon him out of the sultana's little velvet mask, Irene drew still further away from him, unheeded, and Durnford slid in between them and slipped her hand through his arm.

"May the humblest of pilgrims be Miss Bosworth's guardian and defender in this unmannerly mob?" he asked tenderly.

She started, with a faintly tremulous movement which thrilled him with triumphant gladness. Only at the tone or touch of one she secretly loves is a woman so moved.

"Mr. Durnford!" she exclaimed. "How did you recognise me?"

"How did you know me so quickly, in spite of my mask?"

"By your voice, of course."

"And I you by a hundred things: by every turn of your head; by every line of your figure; by the atmosphere that breathes around you; by the halo of light which to my eye hovers perpetually round your head; by a deep delight that steals over me when you are near. And you have been in London a week and I have not seen you, and yet I have passed your door twenty times a day. Cruel, never to discover me from your window, never to make an excuse for five minutes' civility: were it but to drop an old fan in the gutter and let me pick it up for you, or to send Sappho out of doors to be all but run over, so that I might rescue her from under a coach and six at peril of this paltry life of mine."

"Sappho is at Fairmile. My father would not let me bring her. He has promised me a pug. Why did you not pay us a visit of your own accord?"

"I was afraid. I have waited, sneak as I am, for Lavendale to take me with him."

"But why?" she asked, with divinest innocence.

"Lest the Squire should suspect me of being in love with you, and forbid me his door."

This suggestion overpowered her, and she was silent. Durnford too was silent, in a delicious pause of rapturous contentment, as he moved slowly through the crowd with his divinity on his arm.

"Is your father here to-night?" he asked presently.

"O no. He hates all such places. My aunt, Lady Tredgold, brought me. My two cousins are here, dressed as Polish peasants, but I have lost them all in the crowd. My aunt is playing cards somewhere, I believe. She left me in charge of Lord Lavendale."

"And now you are in my charge, and I shall give you up to no one but your aunt."

"My cousins told me that she will play quadrille all night if we let her alone. We shall have to go and fetch her when it is time to go home."

"That will not be till the sun is high. And then if your cousins are girls of spirit they won't be too anxious for going home. We might drive to Islington and breakfast in the gardens there by sunrise, if it were but warmer weather. Let us be happy while we can."

"I am very happy to-night," answered Rena, with delicious simplicity. "When I first came I thought this scene enchanting."

"And you don't think it less enchanting now?" asked Herrick, in a pleading tone. "Surely my presence has not spoiled it for you?"

"Indeed, no: I am very glad to see you again."

And so they wandered on, in and out amidst that giddy crowd, jostling against statesmen and fine ladies, princes and potentates; and so lost in the delight of each other's presence that they were scarce conscious of being in company. For them that crowd of maskers was but as a gallery of pictures, mere scenic decoration, of no significance.

Lord Lavendale had been swallowed up in the throng, had vanished from their sight altogether, he and his Turkish lady. By one half-haughty, half-gracious movement of her Oriental fan she had beckoned, and he had followed, as recklessly as Hamlet followed his father's spectre, scarcely caring whither it led him, even were it to sudden, untimely death.

This Oriental lady only led the way to one of the side-rooms of the theatre – rooms where maskers supped, or gambled, or flirted, or plotted, as circumstance and character impelled them. This room into which Lavendale followed the sultana was devoted to cards, and two ladies and two gentlemen were squabbling over quadrille by the light of four tall wax candles.

Both gentlemen had removed their masks, and in one of them Lavendale recognised Mr. Topsparkle. That painted parchment face of his was scarcely more natural than a mask, and had something the look of one, Lavendale thought, in the flickering light of those tall dim candles.

Lady Judith turned and made him a curtsy.

"Now does your lordship know who I am?" she asked.

"I knew you from the first instant of our meeting. Is there any woman in London who has the imperial air of Lady Judith Topsparkle? Could a mask hide Juno, do you think?"

"I suppose not. One ought to muffle oneself in a domino if one wanted to be unrecognised. But I question if any of us women come here with that view. We are too vain. We want everybody to say, 'How well she is looking to-night! she is positively the finest woman in the room!'"

She had sunk upon a low divan, in a careless attitude which was full of a kind of regal grace.

"I forget if you and my husband know each other?" she asked lightly.

There was not the faintest sign of emotion in her tone or her manner. Careless lightness, the airy indifference of a fashionable acquaintance, could not be more distinctly indicated.

"I have not yet had the felicity of being made known to Mr. Topsparkle," Lavendale answered, with that perfect manner of his which was exquisitely courteous, and yet gave the lady indifference for indifference.

"O, but you must know each other. You have so many ideas in common – you are both travellers, both eccentrics, both much cleverer than the common herd of humanity. Vyvyan, put down your cards for a moment if you can; here is Lord Lavendale, who complains that you have not waited upon him since he returned from the East."

"I am vastly to blame," replied Topsparkle, shifting his cards to his left hand and offering the right to Lavendale, a pallid attenuated hand, decorated with a choice intaglio and one other ring, a twice-coiled snake with a black diamond in its head, which looked like a gem with a history; "I am stricken with remorse at the idea of my neglect. But his lordship's appearance in London has been meteoric rather than regular, and I have been for the most part in the country."

"The honour of making Mr. Topsparkle's acquaintance is only more precious because it has been deferred," answered Lavendale; and the two gentlemen, after having shaken hands with effusion, acknowledged each other's compliments with stately bows.

Mr. Topsparkle resumed his play, and Lavendale seated himself on the divan beside Lady Judith.

"Shall I attend you to the dancing-room?" he asked.

"No, I am sick to death of the crowd and the heat, and all those fine people," she answered, taking off her mask, and letting him see the loveliness he had once adored. "Did you observe Miss Thornleigh as Iphigenia?" she asked carelessly.

"I beheld an exquisite vision of nakedness, like Eve before the fall, at which all the world was gazing. I thought it was meant for our universal mother!"

"No, it was Iphigenia."

"I stand corrected. Then a scanty drapery of silvery gauze and a fillet round the brow mean Iphigenia. Now can I understand why Diana rejected the young lady by way of holocaust, and substituted a hind at the final moment. Such unclothed loveliness must have appalled the modest goddess."

Lady Judith laughed behind her fan, and shrugged her beautiful shoulders in the loose Turkish robe, which was decency itself in comparison with Miss Thornleigh's audacious transparency of raiment. Everything is a question of degree, and to be half naked in those days was only modish; but there was a boundary-line, and the beautiful Miss Thornleigh was considered to have overstepped it.

They talked of their acquaintance upon that crowded stage yonder, discussed the scandals of the hour, the curious marriages – an elderly lady to her footman, a gentleman of rank to an orange-girl – there had been a passion for oranges ever since the days of Nell Gwynne.

"I believe to sell oranges is the only passport to a fine gentleman's favour," said Judith. "I almost wish I had begun life with a basket, like the famous Clara, princess of the Court of Requests. I would give much to have inspired such a passion in such a man as Henry St. John."

"It is not too late, even without the oranges," answered Lavendale, smiling at her. "If St. John was too easily melted, be sure Bolingbroke is not altogether adamant."

"O, but he has a farm and a French wife, and has turned respectable. The fiery St. John of Queen Anne's time, the hawk that swooped on every dove, is altogether extinct; there is no such person."

"Are there not rivers in Damascus?" asked Lavendale with lowered voice, drawing nearer to her as he spoke. "Are there none who can love as St. John loved – not wasting that exquisite passion upon an inconstant orange-wench, but burning his lamp of life before a higher altar, worshipping, adoring at a purer shrine?"

"Heavens, what rodomontade we are talking!" cried Lady Judith, starting up from her divan, and moving quickly to the door. "The very air of these dances is full of a jargon which even sensible people fall into unawares. Come, why do you not ask my hand for a minuet? I think you and I have danced one ages ago, and that our steps went in decent time."

"Think! Ah, I forgot how short is memory in a lady of fashion."

"O, we have so many caprices to blot the tablet. Now a new singer, and anon a new colour in lutestring, or a new style of headdress, or a new game at cards. Life is a series of transformations. Here is poor Dick Steele, struck down with paralysis, and gone to end his days in Cheshire, he who was the wittiest man in London when I first knew this town. I heard of his malady only to-night. Life is full of sad changes. One can hardly remember oneself of a few years ago, much less one's friends. But I swear I should have known your lordship anywhere."

"I am proud to be so far honoured."

They reëntered the busy scene at a pause between two dances. Everybody was walking about. The dazzle and glitter of that moving throng showed dimly through an all-pervading cloud of powder and dust, like a tropical haze on a marshy shore; the Babel of voices was bewildering to the ear.

"There goes Peterborough with Anastasia Robinson on his arm. I can swear to the turn of her head, though she has muffled herself in sables as a Russian Czarina."

"If she knew what a cook-maid the present Empress of Russia is, the lady would hardly aspire to be mistaken for her."

"O, it is only to make us all sick with envy at the splendour of her sables. His lordship bought them for her in Paris. They are worth a king's ransom. 'Tis said he allows her a hundred guineas a month, but I am sure she must spend three times as much."

"You make me feel as if I were one of the Seven Sleepers," exclaimed Lavendale. "Is not Mrs. Robinson the very pink and pattern of virtue; so chaste and cold a being that even the too tender wooing of Senesino in an opera – mere stage love-making – wounded and offended her?"

"That is perfectly true; but it is no less true that she smiles upon Lord Peterborough. Who could withstand a warrior and a hero? The man who conquered a province with a mere handful of troops must needs be irresistible to a weak woman. She is living at Parson's Green with her mother; but as Peterborough spends most of his life there, people will talk."

"In spite of the mother?"

"In spite of the mother," echoed Judith. "However, it is hinted they are privately married, and there are those among us who still continue to receive Mrs. Robinson under that charitable supposition; ourselves, for instance. Topsparkle is such a fanatic about music that I hardly dare question a soprano's reputation, or hint that a tenor has the air of having sprung from the gutter. At Ringwood Abbey we receive every one who can sing or play to perfection, without reference to character. I myself own to a prejudice in favour of those ladies who are still at their first or second lover, in preference to those who have ruined half the pretty fellows in town. But Bononcini and Handel are the two people who really choose our society. We have our Bononcini set and our Handel set, and are Italian or German as those great masters dictate. But you must come to Ringwood some day and judge for yourself. How do you like my husband?"

This was asked abruptly, with the lightest, most impertinent air.

"Mr. Topsparkle's courtesy to me just now renders me too much his debtor to be disinterested. I am already a partial critic. But I am told by the indifferent world that he is a most accomplished gentleman."

"Yes, he is very clever. But it is a fantastical kind of cleverness. He plays the organ divinely, knows ever so many modern languages, and writes French almost as well as Monsieur le Voltaire. He has un-Englished himself by his long residence on the Continent, and must be judged by a foreign standard of taste."

"So long as he has succeeded in making you happy – " began Lavendale, in a lowered voice.

"Do I not look happy?" she asked, with smiling lips under the little velvet mask.

"You look gloriously handsome. That radiant surface is too dazzling for me to penetrate deeper. Who could question those lovely lips when they smile, or dare hint that silvery laughter might be artificial? I will believe anything those lips tell me."

"Then you may believe that Mr. Topsparkle is vastly kind, and that he has loaded me with all the luxuries women live for nowadays: lutestring gowns, Brussels lace, diamonds, pug-dogs, black footmen, and a Swiss porter. If he cannot always insure me peace of mind it is the fault of my capriciousness, and not any lack of kindness in him. My bosom is racked at this moment by the thought of the lottery. I may win ten thousand pounds, or draw nothing but blanks. I have wasted a competence in buying up other people's tickets, for I dreamt I won the ten thousand pound prize, and I have been in a fever of expectation from that hour."

"I hope you will not be too much disappointed should the dream prove false: one of those deluding visions by which the Homeric gods lead their victims into deadly peril."

"If that dream do not come true, I swear I will never sleep again; never more trust myself in the land of lying shadows."

"The company all seem crowding to one spot. Shall we go?"

"Yes, this instant. It is nearly time for the lottery."

She took his arm, leaning on it in her eager haste, and her lovely arm was pressed against his heart, beating passionately with all the old fever. It was an unholy fever, for in his heart of hearts he knew that she was not a good woman, that she had deteriorated sorely since their last parting, that wealth and pride of place and the flatteries of a modish mob had perverted all of good that had been left in her nature in those old days when she was Lady Judith Walberton. Her reckless conversation, her air of audacity, which seemed to challenge the rekindling of old fires, shocked even while it captivated him. There was a strange mixture of love and pity in his mind as he gazed upon this beautiful, brilliant, and perhaps lost creature.

The lottery was attended by a maddened crowd, almost reproducing upon a small scale the fever and folly of that famous South Sea scheme, which but six years ago had spread ruin and sorrow over the land, as if it had been some scaly monster come up out of the sea to devour the inhabitants of the earth. The monster's name was Avarice or Cupidity, most fatal among all fiery dragons that feed upon the flesh of men. And now the same foul beast in little was preying upon this modish crowd. There were women who had pledged their diamond earrings to buy tickets; there were sadder sisters who had bartered their honour: and for how many was the agony of disappointment inevitable!

For Lady Judith among others. Her eleven numbers were all blanks. She pushed her way through the mob in a towering passion.

"The whole thing is a cheat!" she exclaimed. "I believe the prize-winner goes halves with the proprietor of the lottery. There must be trickery somewhere. Did you see how delighted Lady Mary Montagu was at winning a paltry fifty pounds? That woman is as mean as Shylock or Harpagon, or as wicked old Sarah herself. I had eleven tickets, every one of them, as I thought, a lucky number: one was my age doubled; the other, Topsparkle's multiplied by nine; another had three sevens in it; another, four threes. I had chosen them with the utmost discretion; and to think there was not a winning number among the whole heap! I gave Lady Wharton a ruby ring for her ticket, one of the finest in my jewel-case, the true pigeon's-blood colour, and the creature has jewed me out of that lovely gem for a scrap of waste pasteboard. I am provoked beyond measure!"

"But, dear Lady Judith, with inordinate wealth at your command, and with the most indulgent of husbands for your purse-bearer, is it worth your while to gamble?"

"Is any pleasure worth one's while?" she retorted mockingly. "They are all empty; they are all Dead Sea apples that turn to dust and ashes. One may as well take diversion one way as another. Topsparkle thinks he is happy when he has collected a pack of squalling Italians or sourcrout-eating Germans under his roof; and yet they contrive to keep him in a fever, by their bickerings and grumblings and envyings, from the moment of arrival to the moment of departure. Will you help me to find my chair? I suppose there will be some of my men in the vestibule, if they are not all drunk at some low mug-house."

"I will answer for finding you a couple of sober chairmen. You will not wait for Mr. Topsparkle?"

"I would not disturb his game for worlds; for though he pretends I am the only gamester in the family, he has a passion for quadrille. He learnt the taste in the south of France, where they play hardly anything else."

They went to the vestibule, where Lady Judith Topsparkle's running footmen were lolling against the wall or lounging about in company with a crowd of other lacqueys, all slightly the worse for twopenny ale, but fairly steady upon their well-fed legs, nevertheless. Lady Judith's liveries of orange and brown were distinguishable by their sombre richness among gaudier suits of blue and silver or peach-blossom and gold.

"My roquelaure," she said to one of her men, a gigantic blackamoor who had served in the Royal Schloss at Berlin, and had been tempted away from his Prussian Majesty's service by larger offers from Mr. Topsparkle. His startling appearance had fascinated the wealthy Englishman, who was instantly eager to add this exotic grace to his household.

The giant spread a fur-lined cloak over her ladyship's shoulders, a cloak of paduasoy which enveloped the tall form from the throat to the feet.

"Let us go and look for my chair," she exclaimed impatiently. "This vestibule reeks of lamp-oil and black footmen."

Lavendale accompanied her swift footsteps out into the portico. Sedan-chairs were standing in quadruple ranks, coaches and chariots blocked the road, shining meteoric with the blaze of their lamps and the glitter of their harness, horses champing, snorting, pawing, in impatience to be moving through the cold crisp air. There was a slight frost, a faint gray fog, and, above, a new moon rode fast in a sky of steely blue, broken by dark clouds.

"I hate to be smothered in a chair after escaping from a stifling assembly-room," said Lady Judith, "and the night seems positively enchanting. Would you have the courage to walk home with me?"

"It needs the courage of a lion, yet I will face the peril for the sake of such company. But will those dainty little Turkish slippers which I observed just now keep out the cold and damp?"

"O, they are more substantial than they look, and the stones seem quite dry. I am not afraid. Juba, tell my chairmen I am going to walk."

Juba, Lady Judith's particular personal attendant, was quick to marshal his men. Two went in advance of their mistress with blazing torches, two others followed, while Juba marched at the head of the little procession by way of advanced guard.

Thus attended, and leaning upon Lord Lavendale's arm, Lady Judith's progress by way of Gerard Street to Soho Square had a picturesque air which is unknown in our matter-of-fact age of well-lit streets and miniature broughams. Everything in those days was on a grandiose scale; and if people spent a good deal of money, they at least had their full value in show and glitter. Those running footmen with their flaming torches, that huge blackamoor with his splendid livery, made a display that would have graced the semi-Oriental state of a Roman Empress in the decadence of the Empire.

Gerard Street was alive with gaiety and fashion – beaux and belles arriving and departing, torches flaming, harness rattling, sedans setting down or taking up their freight at every door, footmen lounging against every railing, link-boys rushing to and fro, making believe that the night was dark, though the cold crescent moon kept peeping out from amidst those black scurrying clouds and putting those resin-dropping links to shame.

Windows blazed with the light of many candles, and shadows flitted across many a blind. From some houses there came a gust of noise – laughter, babble, and the rattle of dice; from another, sounds of music now classic, then modern and fashionable. There was no such thing as solitude for Lavendale and Lady Judith in that walk through one of the most fashionable quarters of the town, no possibility of anything compromising or sentimental. Their talk was of the lightest – the very thistledown of polite conversation – with no more purpose or depth of meaning than there is in Mr. Pope's letters to Lady Mary written a few years before this time.

What a beautiful, frivolous, gracious creature she seemed in Lavendale's eyes as she walked by his side, moving with swift footsteps through the cold night! She carried herself superbly at all times, and walked like Dian or Atalanta. Sir Robert himself had praised her carriage, and talked of her as "a splendid mover," as if she had been one of his Norfolk hunters. She wore her mask still, and her head was muffled in her Turkish "asmack," and her long furred mantle reached to her heels. Yet there was hardly a man at the Court end of London who would have failed to recognise the lady whom a legion of admirers at White's and at the Cocoa Tree toasted as a queen among women, and whose name had been written with a diamond on one of the toast-glasses at the Kit-Kat Club when she was fifteen.