At last the feast is over, and they repair again to the brilliant drawing and ball rooms where there is to be singing and dancing. What remains of the night will be passed thus; and, as is usual, the last stragglers cannot be expected to go until the small hours of the morning.
Aleck would under ordinary circumstances have gone long before, but somehow he cannot tear himself away while others remain. Nor can he understand what it is that chains him unless it is love that fills his heart. It begins to appear a very serious business, and Craig takes himself to task several times about it.
The company has dwindled down to a few, and Aleck resolves upon leaving. Wycherley has gone, actually seeing a banker’s daughter home like the audacious fellow he is.
Craig has promised to come around in the morning and help translate the tale Phœnix left behind him in shorthand—which is to disclose the intended plans of the wily Turk.
Feeling very much at peace with himself and the world in general, Aleck is descending the stairs after having donned his light overcoat, and secured his hat, when there rings through the house the sudden shriek of a woman.
He knows that it comes from the ladies’ dressing room, and without losing a second makes a dash in that direction. On the way he overtakes Samson Cereal, and together the two push through the door into the apartment.
What they see is an appalling spectacle!
There has been a fire in the grate, for the night air is chilly, and society ladies are not too warmly clad. How it happened no one may discover, but Dorothy in passing must have gone too near, and her train swept into contact with the fire. At any rate she was ablaze almost in a flash, her light drapery burning like matchwood.
Not from her lips did that shriek issue, for sudden fright palsied her voice; but the attendant gave the alarm; she, regardless of her own safety, threw herself bodily on the lovely young girl and beat out the fire with her hands.
In this she is successful, but the flames communicated to her own clothes. She throws Dorothy from her, just as the gentlemen rush in through the doorway.