I mean
every word that I have written of my peculiar shame for this night's
work. And it was all. to come over me before the night was out. But
in the garden I never felt it once.
The dining-room windows blazed in the side of the house facing the
road. That was an objection to peeping through the venetian blinds,
as we nevertheless did, at our peril of observation from the road.
Raffles would never have led me into danger so gratuitous and
unnecessary, but he followed me into it without a word. I can only
plead that we both had our reward. There was a sufficient chink in
the obsolete venetians, and through it we saw every inch of the
picturesque board. Mrs. Guillemard was still in her place, but she
really was the only lady, and dressed as quietly as I had prophesied;
round her neck was her rope of pearls, but not the glimmer of an
emerald nor the glint of a diamond, nor yet the flashing
constellation of a tiara in her hair. I gripped Raffles in token
of my triumph, and he nodded as he scanned the overwhelming majority
of flushed fox-hunters. With the exception of one stripling,
evidently the son of the house, they were in evening pink to a man;
and as I say, their faces matched their coats.
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