On our return to town in the evening we found Boulton and Park waiting for us at his lordship's chambers. They wanted us to join in a special pederastic orgie, to take place the same night at the house of a certain young Earl, who had two young foreign pages just arrived, the one from France and the other from Italy, and their introduction into the mystic circle was to be the chief event of the night's programme.
Lord Arthur had another engagement, which prevented him coming with us, and so I went with them.
They had a private brougham in waiting, which took us to Grosvenor Square.
A very sedate and elderly footman ushered us upstairs to a dressing-room, which formed part of the Earl's own special apartments, a suite of six or seven rooms, rigorously set apart from the rest of the house, where none but his confidential servants and pages were ever allowed to enter.
At the time of our visit the Countess was out of town at Scarborough, assiduously carrying on an anything but innocent flirtation with a certain young Marquis; but the Earl, her husband, cared not a fig for that, so long as he enjoyed himself in his own way.
"His lordship will expect you in the billiard-room in half-an-hour. You will find your portmanteaus all right. They were placed here directly they arrived an hour or so ago," remarked the footman as he withdrew.
"Then we must not lose any time, my dear Eveline. You will find I have brought a charming costume for you," said Boulton.
Notwithstanding sundry loving jokes and liberties we were soon ready to see the Earl, and as we entered the billiard-room, found he had three other gentlemen with him, all young fellows like himself, under twenty-five or thereabouts.