"Dinner at once, Fritz," said Percivale to his servant, as he advanced to meet his guests.

"Are we late?" cried Lady Mabel, as she swept her silken skirts up the long room, and greeted her host with extended hand. "It must be Elsa's fault, then—she was so long dressing."

"Oh, Lady Mabel!" cried Elsa, in lovely confusion, as she came forward in her turn.

She was in black to-night—some delicate, clinging, semi-transparent material, arranged in wonderful folds, with gleams of brightness here and there. It caused her neck and arms to seem a miracle of fairness; the arrangement of her golden hair was perfect, a diamond arrow being stuck through its masses.

To the chivalrous poetic mind of her lover, she was a dream of beauty—a thing hardly mortal—so transfused with soul and spirit, that no thought of the mundane or the commonplace could intrude into his thoughts of her.

Disillusioned! Could any man ever be disillusioned who had the depths of those lake-like eyes to gaze into?

She gave him her little hand—bien gantÉe—and lifted those eyes to his. Lady Mabel had passed on to speak to her brother.

"I have no flowers," said Elsa, softly "you told me not to wear any."

"I wished you to wear mine, will you?" said Percivale.

Her eyelids fell before his eager glance: but she made a little movement of assent.

He turned to the table, and taking up the fragrant bouquet of lillies, placed it in her hands; then lifting another of mixed flowers, which lay beside it, he offered it to Lady Mabel, with an entreaty that she would honor him by carrying it that night.

As he spoke, a pair of dark curtains, which hung at the upper end of the room, were drawn back by two men in livery; and Fritz, appearing in the aperture, solemnly announced,

"Dinner is served."

Percivale offered Lady Mabel his arm, and led her through the archway, followed by Claud and Elsa.

"Claud, will you take the foot of the table for me?" said he.

"Which do you call the foot?" laughed Claud, as he sat down opposite his host at the daintily appointed round table.

The room was very much smaller than that they had quitted, but was quite a study in its way. Vanbrugh had designed the ceiling and carvings, and a fine selection of paintings adorned the walls. A beautiful Procaccini was let into the wall above the mantelpiece; a Sasso Ferrato was opposite. Two Ruysdaels lent the glamor of their deep gloomy wood and sky, and the foam of their magic waterfalls. The whole room was lit with wax candles, and fragrant with the violets which composed the table decorations.

"I am so sorry to seem to hurry you," said Percivale, apologetically; "but I want Miss Brabourne to hear the overture; one ought not to miss the overture to 'Lohengrin,' though I find it is the fashion in England to saunter in in the middle of the first act."

"Oh, dear, yes; but we don't go to the opera to hear music in England," laughed Lady Mabel. "It is to see the new prima donna, or study the costumes of the ladies in the stalls."

"I should have no objection, if these laudable objects could be attained without spoiling the pleasure of those who are sufficiently out of date to wish to listen to the performance," replied Percivale. "It is the one thing in England which I cannot bear with temper! It would not be allowed in Germany."

"Germany is the land of the leal for those that love music."

"Yes, indeed; there one can let oneself go, in utter enjoyment, knowing that there can be no onslaught of large and massive Philistine, sweeping her ample wraps, kicking your toes, struggling across your knees, banging down the seat of her stall with a report that eclipses and blots out a dozen delicate chords. No loudly whispered comments, no breathless pantings are audible, no wrestling with contumacious hooks and clasps sets your teeth on edge. For the unmusical and vociferous British female, if she have arrived late, will be forcibly detained at the door till the first act is over, and even then will enter despoiled of most of her weapons for creating a disturbance, having been forced to leave her superfluous clothing in the garde-robe."

They had never seen Percivale so gay, nor so full of talk. He chatted on about one subject and another, addressing himself mostly to Lady Mabel, whilst Claud was constrained to listen, since Elsa was even more silent than her wont.

The dinner was excellently cooked and served.

"You are a perfect Count of Monte Cristo, Percivale," laughed Claud. "I feel myself waiting for the crowning point of the entertainment. Will not your slaves presently bring in a living fish, brought from Russia in salt water to die on the table? Shall we each find a Koh-i-noor diamond in our finger-bowl as a slight mark of your esteem? Or, at a given signal, shall we be buried in a shower of rose-leaves like the guests of Heliogabalus!"

Percivale laughed, and reddened.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I have prepared no conjuring tricks to-night," he said. "Another time, perhaps, when we have more leisure. Lady Mabel, you must not judge of the entertainment I like to offer my guests from this hurried little meal; you will do me the honor to return here after the opera, and have some supper? I am afraid we have no time to lose now."

"Mabel neither eats anything herself nor thinks that other people ought to," complained Claud. "I suffer a daily martyrdom in her house, and I am sure I begin to perceive signs of inanition in Miss Brabourne. You see, it demoralises the cook. She thinks that to live on air is the peculiarity of the upper ten, and wants me to dine on a cutlet the size of half-a-crown with a tomato on the top, followed by the leg of a quail."

"How can you, sir?" cried Lady Mabel, in mock indignation, shaking her fist at her brother.

"I tell you it's the literal truth; that is the real reason why poor Edward is wintering abroad. He cannot reduce his appetite to the required pitch of elegance."

"If elegance consists in eating nothing, Mr. Percivale may take the prize to-night," observed Lady Mabel, significantly, as she and Elsa rose from table.

"I—have not much appetite to-night," stammered the young man, in some confusion, as he started up and held the curtain for the ladies to pass through.

He remained standing, so, with uplifted arm, for several seconds after the sweep of Elsa's black skirts had died away into silence; then, letting the curtain drop suddenly into place, turned back and tossed his crushed serviette upon the table. She had been there—in these lonely rooms, which year by year he had heaped with treasures for the ideal bride who was to come. Now the fancy had taken shape—the vision was realised; the beautiful woman of his dreams stood before him in bodily form. Would she take all this treasured, stored-up love and longing which he was aching to cast at her feet?

Claud broke in upon his reverie.

"I wish you luck, Leon," said he, coming up and grasping his hand.

His friend turned round with a brilliant smile.

"That is a capital omen," he said, "that you should call me by my name. Nobody has called me by my name—for five years. Thank you, Claud."

He returned the pressure of the hand with fervor; then, starting, said:

"Come, get your coat, we shall be late," and hurried through the archway, followed by Mr. Cranmer.

The opera-house was crowded that night. There were the German enthusiasts occupying all the cheap places, their scores under their arms, their faces beaming with anticipation; there was the fashionable English crowd in the most costly places, there because they supposed they ought to say they had heard "Lohengrin," but consoling themselves with the thought that they could leave if they were very much bored, and mildly astonished at the eccentricity of those who could persuade themselves that they really liked Wagner. And lastly, there were the excessively cultured English clique, the apostles of the music of the future, looking with gentle tolerance on the youthful crudities of "Lohengrin," and sitting through it only because they could not have "Siegfried" or the "GÖtterdÄmmerung."

A very languid clapping greeted the conductor of the orchestra as he took his seat. Percivale, watching Elsa, saw her eyes dilated, her whole being poised in anticipation of the first note, as the bÂton was slowly raised. There was a soft shudder of violins—a delicate agony of sound vibrated along the nerves. Can any operatic writer ever hope to surpass that first slow sweep of suggestive harmony? From the moment when the overture began, Percivale's beloved sat rapt.

The curtain rose on the barbaric crowd—the dramatic action of the opera began. At the appearance of her namesake, the falsely accused Elsa of Brabant, a storm of feeling agitated the modern Elsa as she gazed.

At last she could keep silence no longer. Turning up her face to Percivale's, who sat next her:

"Oh," she whispered, "it is like me—and you came, like Lohengrin, to save me."

He smiled into her eyes.

"Nay," he said, "I am no immortal or miraculous champion; you will not induce me to depart as easily as he did. Besides, I do not think he was right—he demanded too much of his Elsa—more than any woman was capable of. You will see what I mean, when the next act begins."

To these two, as they sat together—so near—almost hand-in-hand, the music was fraught with an exquisite depth of meaning which it could not bear to other ears.

As the notes of the distant organ broke through the orchestra, and rolled sonorous from the cathedral doors, it was like a foreshadowing to Percivale of his own future happiness.

And when, in the twilight of their chamber, Lohengrin and Elsa were left alone, and the mysterious thrilling melody of the wonderful love-duet was flooding the air, unconsciously the hand of the listening girl fell into that of her lover, and so they sat, recking nothing of the significance of the action, until the curtain fell.

"Now you will see," spoke Percivale, softly, "that Lohengrin did what I could not do; he left his—Elsa."

She did not answer; she could not. Ashamed of her late action, and with a tumult of strange new feelings stirring in her heart, she turned her head away from him, and would not speak again until the end of the opera.

"I want to offer an apology," said Percivale to Lady Mabel, as he arranged her cloak. "Will you condescend to drive back in a hansom? My coachman has rheumatism, and I told him he was not to come for us."

"Certainly. I have a great partiality for hansoms," answered Lady Mabel, readily; she was rather disconcerted, however, a moment later, to find that it was her brother who was at her elbow.

"Where is Elsa? Claud, you should have taken her," she said, rather irritably.

"I? Thanks, no. I don't care to force my company on a young lady who would rather be with the other fellow. No hurry, Mab. I want to light a cigar."

"Nonsense, Claud. Get me a cab at once. Am I to wait in this draughty place?"

"You must, unless you are prepared to walk in those shoes as far as the end of the street."

"But where are the other two? Are they behind?"

"No; got the start of us, I fancy," said Claud, with exasperating calmness. "Wait a moment. I will go out and catch a cab if you will stay here."

He vanished accordingly and his sister was constrained to wait for him. When at last he returned, she was almost the only lady still waiting.

"You have no idea," said Claud, apologetically, "of the stupendous difficulty of finding a cab. They all say they are engaged. I feel quite out of the fashion, Mab; I think I ought to be engaged."

"I'm not in a mood for nonsense, sir. I am vexed with you, and with Mr. Percivale, too. He could not have meant to treat me like this—he had no right to make off in that manner and leave me in the lurch."

"To be left in the lurch is sometimes the fate of chaperones," observed her brother, pensively, as he piloted her out of the theatre. "I am afraid you hardly counted the cost, Mab, when you offered to chaperone a beauty. It is hardly your rÔle, old lady."

This was too true to be pleasant. Lady Mabel was so accustomed to male admiration that she usually took it for granted that she was the attraction. The great influx of young men which inundated Bruton Street had caused her, only a few days back, to congratulate herself that her charms were still potent. Percivale's good looks, riches, and generally unusual entourage had led her to imagine that a platonic friendship with him would enliven the winter. The idea suggested by her brother's words was like a douche of cold water. If he were such an idiot as to be in love with the pretty face of the foolish Elsa—well! But he was so fascinating that one could not help regretting it! He was raised all of a sudden to a much higher value than the crowd of adorers who in general formed her ladyship's court. Surely he could not intend to go and tie himself down at his age! The thought greatly disturbed her.

"Claud, you must throw away that cigar, and tell him to let down the glass—I am frozen."

Claud complied.

"He's going in a very queer direction," observed he, presently. "Hallo, friend, this is not the way to St. James's Place."

"Thought you said St. James' Square, sir."

"Well, I didn't; it's exactly the opposite direction, down by the river——"

"Right, sir. I know it."

"I suppose you will get there some time to-morrow morning," observed his sister, icily.

"I am tearing my lungs to pieces in my efforts to do so," was the polite response.

Percivale and Elsa stood together in the lamplight.

Thanks to Claud's kindly manoeuvres, a precious half-hour had been theirs. The young man's arms were round the slim form of his beloved and there was a look in his eyes as though, to him, life had indeed become the "perfumed altar-flame" to which Maud's lover likened his.

A deep hush was over the whole place, and over his noble soul as he held his treasure tenderly to him.

Presently, breaking through his rapturous dream, he led her to the window, and, pushing it open, they gazed down on the wide dark waters of the Thames, lighted by a million lamps.

"We stand together as did Lohengrin and his Elsa," he murmured. "Oh, love, love, love, if I could tell you how I love you!"

"It is sweet to be loved," said the girl. "I have never had much love, all my life. When first I went abroad, and began to read novels, I used to wonder if any such thing would ever happen to me."

"But—but," faltered Percivale, a sudden jealous pang darting through his consciousness, "did not some one speak to you of love before—before I ever saw you, sweet?"

"Oh, Osmond Allonby. Poor Osmond!" Leaning back against his arm she turned her beautiful face to his. "I did not know what love meant, then," she said.

He bent his mouth to hers.

"You know now, Elsa?"

Even as he kissed her, a sudden unbidden memory of Claud's warning words rushed in and seemed just to dash the bliss of that caress.

"You ask more than any woman can give?" No, he fiercely told himself, he asked of her nothing but to be just what she was. Was it her fault that Osmond could not look on her without loving? Most certainly not.

Love and happiness, the two things from which this rich young man had been debarred, seemed all his own at last.

Farewell to lonely cruising and aimless travels. His heart's core, his life's aim was found; the birthday of his life had come.