There was a gasp of horror from the maid. "If a woman had a face like a burst boot, such as Lady Alcott," she went on, "you say what a kind heart she had." She laughed again, stepping back out of Hester's reach and speaking even more loudly. "If he was a liar and a cheat, like Mr. Worthington, you praise his wit. If he betrayed his wife with half the neighborhood, you talk all about his generosity. Everyone keeps a straight face, and weeps a lot into their handkerchiefs to hide their laughter." She hiccupped and ignored it. "You don't understand," she went on, looking a little dizzily at Hester. "You've spent too much time in the army."

"Oh, God!" someone groaned.

Someone else began to giggle and couldn't stop. It was wild, hilarious, hysterical laughter, soaring higher and higher.

Rose was hopelessly drunk. She must have had far more than Hester had seen or realized. Was this the terrible weakness that Morgan Apple-gate had been trying to guard her against? Had he the faintest idea what she was like? What she was saying so devastatingly loudly was awful! The worse for being perfectly true, and what everyone was secretly thinking.

Rose was about to start playing the violin again. The pianist was waiting, half in agony, half in ecstasy. It was probably a night she would remember for the rest of her life. She kept her eyes straight ahead and took a deep breath, then plunged in with a resounding bass chord, and then a trill on the top notes.

Hester was desperate. It was all completely out of control, and part of her was on the edge of laughter. It was only the knowledge of ruin that stopped her joining in. She snatched the violin bow from Rose, gripping it around the middle in a fashion that probably did it little good. She flung it behind her, towards the back of the dais, where at least no one would tread on it. The original violinist was still collapsed in a heap, and someone was waving a fan at her quite uselessly. The cellist had disappeared completely.

"You are going home because you are no longer welcome here," Hester told Rose as sternly as she could. "Put that violin down and take my arm! Do as you are told!"

"I thought we could play a game," Rose protested. "Charades, don't you think? Or perhaps not-we're playing it all the time, really, aren't we? Or blindman's buff? We could all grope around, bumping into each other and grabbing hold of the prettiest, or the richest... no, that's being done too. All the time. What do you suggest?" She looked at Hester expectantly.

Hester could feel her face burning. "Come home," she said between her teeth, suddenly overtaken with fury at the senseless destruction of a reputation. "Now!"

Rose was startled by the tone rather than the words. Reluctantly she obeyed.