The elves had made a night of it, and what a night!
Every room, corner and cranny in the great establishment had been visited and explored. The butler's pantry they exulted in--to this day Gootle does not know who put the salad-dressing into his particular whisky. The conservatory was for a time transformed. The flowers within it lost their lethargy, and knew again gladness of life. The fairies played hide-and-seek among the shelves and statuary of the library. The dining-table, whereon June had danced on the night of her début at Armingham House, was in the evening used for many series of fairy rounds--the full score of princely people tracing triumphant dances around and about their leader and lady.
Only Geoffrey Season and his mother were dining at home that night, so there was ample room for the elves to disport in. The butler and his footmen four, looking solemnly at the damask emptiness, were puzzled by--they knew not what! There seemed to be things there, filling the emptiness, that never were there. O dear! A strange world!
Geoffrey was the person most strongly impressed by the atmosphere of enchantment. His conversation shone with unusual brightness, it bubbled with happiest effervescence; but the Duchess, conscious of the amazing invitation to, and certain coming on the morrow of, the millionaire's wife, was far down in the glooms, weighed down with the dumps. She could not bring herself to tell even her son of that incomprehensible accident; and went to bed early, giving Sparks an unheavenly time.
The hours of Faerie came. When the moon was throwing a silver bar over the blue silk coverlet; when stars peeped through the windows; when the night-light's tiny flame was modestly gleaming; when her Grace's breathing made music in the room; then fairies, a score and one, might have been seen flitting about the bed and before the mirrors, swinging on silver fittings, clinging to tapestry hangings, sleeping placidly, sharing the laced pillow with the Duchess of Armingham.
And so for the night we leave that company of immortals and their quarry, and come to the important to-morrow.
The Duchess woke with a light heart; and, when Sparks brought the morning tasse, was inclined to carol.
The maid saw the unwonted gleam of geniality, precisely at the moment when her mistress remembered Mrs. Moss. Sparks watched the glow of kindness fade, die, and the Duchess become herself again.
The state of high-born sulkiness did not last long. June, except for the hour of siesta wherein she returned to Paradise Court to fetch Bim, was constantly beside the Duchess. She spent the whole of that day in preparing the atmosphere for a great conversion. Her magic permeated every part of and person in the great house--from boudoir to boot-boy. Her influence, so real and sweetly haunting, affected the Duchess deeply. She still kept a proud face, but inwardly was sorely inclined to surrender and give herself to the fairies. Her heart was converted already, but still she steadily resisted the new tendencies.
The Duchess was one of the obstinate company who insist on dying in the last ditch.