It was half-past two, and yes, the ball was decidedly 'thinning out.'
The attendants in the lower hall, when they were not calling carriages, yawned behind their hands, and stood first on one foot, and then on the other.
Women in beautiful wraps, their heads flashing with jewels, descended the staircase, and drove, or even walked, away into the summer night.
Lady Brighthelmston began to look tired, although all the world, as it said good night, was telling her that it was one of the most delightful balls of the season.
The English nosegay had lost its white flower, for Patricia was not in the family group. I looked everywhere for the gleam of her silvery scarf, everywhere for Terence, while, the waltz music having ceased, the Spanish students played 'Love's Young Dream.'
I hummed the words as the sweet old tune, strummed by the tinkling mandolins, vibrated clearly in the maze of other sounds:—
'Oh! the days have gone when Beauty bright
My heart's chain wove;
When my dream of life from morn till night
Was Love, still Love.
New hope may bloom and days may come,
Of milder, calmer beam,
But there's nothing half so sweet in life
As Love's Young Dream.'
At last, in a quiet spot under the oak-tree, the lately risen moon found Patricia's diamond arrow and discovered her to me. The Japanese lanterns had burned out; she was wrapped like a young nun, in a cloud of white that made her eyelashes seem darker.
I looked once, because the moonbeam led me into it before I realised; then I stole away from the window and into my own room, closing the door softly behind me.
We had so far been looking only at conventionalities, preliminaries, things that all (who had eyes to see) might see; but this was different—quite, quite different.