some evil thing, mocking, sardonic, triumphant.
"God!" Thorneycroft bent over the rigid form, feeling the heart that had ceased to beat. He spoke a quick word, and servants came and carried out the body.
But the people who crowded the rooms seemed quite unaware that death had stalked among them. Suddenly a wild wave of gayety surged through the house. They laughed. They chattered. They jested. They clinked glasses. The orchestra led away with a Paris waltz that was as light as foam.
That night champagne flowed like water. Half a dozen love-affairs were finished, another half-dozen begun. Scandal was winked at and condoned. Gayety, the madness of Bacchanalian gayety, invaded every nook and cranny of Marlborough House, invading the very servants hall, where the majordomo balanced the third up-stairs parlor-maid on his knees and spoke to her of love in thickly dignified terms.
Two days later Martab Singh Maharaja of Oneypore, descendant of the many gods, was buried in state, with twenty file of Horse Guards flanking the coffin, and all the purple-faced gentry of the India Office rolling behind in carriages, dressed
