It was a soft starlit night mystically changing into dawn when Donal Muir left the tall, grave house on Eaton Square after the strangely enchanted dance given by the old Dowager Duchess of Darte.

A certain impellingness of mood suggested that exercise would be a good thing and he decided to walk home.

It was an impellingness of body as well as mind.

He had remained later than the relative who had by chance been responsible for his being brought, an uninvited guest, to the party.

The Duchess had not known that he was in London.