THE SECOND SITTING On the following night Valentine sat waiting for Julian's arrival in his drawing-room, which looked out upon Victoria Street, whereas the only window of the tentroom opened upon some waste ground where once a panorama of Jerusalem, or some notorious city, stood, and where building operations were now being generally carried on.

Valentine very seldom used his drawing-room.

Sometimes pretty women came to tea with him, and he did them honour there.

Sometimes musicians came.

Then there was always a silent group gathered round the Steinway grand piano.
For Valentine was inordinately fond of music, and played so admirably that even professionals never hurled at him a jeering "amateur!" But when Valentine was alone, or when he expected one or two men to smoke, he invariably sat in the tentroom, where the long lounges and the shaded electric light were suggestive of desultory conversation, and seemed tacitly to forbid all things that savour of a hind-leg attitude.
To-night, however, some whim, no doubt, had prompted him to forsake his usual haunt.