The Black Domino stood aside for Lethbridge to follow her, and once more begging pardon, retreated into the ballroom.
“How horribly p-provoking!” Horatia said, looking at her hopelessly torn frill. “Now I shall have to go and p-pin it up. Of course it is quite ruined.”
“Shall I call him out?” Lethbridge said. “Faith, he deserves it! How came he to tread on your skirt at all?”
“G-goodness knows!” said Horatia. She gave a little chuckle. “He was d-dreadfully overcome, wasn’t he? Where shall I find you, R-Robert?”
“I’ll await you here,” he answered.
“And then we p-play cards?”
“And then we play cards,” he concurred.
“I w-wont be above a m-moment,” Horatia promised optimistically, and vanished into the ballroom again.
Lord Lethbridge strolled towards the low parapet that ran along the edge of the terrace, and stood leaning his hands on it, and looking idly down at the lily-pond a few feet below. Little coloured lights ringed it round, and some originally-minded person had designed a cluster of improbable flowers to hold tiny lamps. These floated on the still water, and had provoked a great deal of laughter and admiration earlier in the evening. Lord Lethbridge was observing them with a rather contemptuous smile twisting his lips when two hands came round his neck from behind, and jerked apart the strings that held his domino loosely together.
Startled, he tried to turn round, but the hands that in one lightning movement had ripped off his domino, closed like a flash about his throat, and tightened suffocatingly. He clawed at them, struggling violently. A drawling voice said in his ear: “I shan’t strangle you this time, Lethbridge. But I am afraid—yes, I am really afraid it will have to be that pond. I feel sure you will appreciate the necessity.”