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Updated: May 18, 2025
Sir Stephen had been the life and soul and spring of the dinner; talking fashionable gossip to Lady Fitzharford on one side of him, and a "giddy girl of twenty" on the other; exchanging badinage with "Bertie," and telling deeply interesting stories to the men; and he was now dragging reluctant laughter from the grim Baron Wirsch and the almost grimmer Griffenberg, as he saw with one eye that the wine was circulating, and with the other that no one was being overlooked or allowed to drop into dullness.
Lady Fitzharford had scarcely left the room, laughing, and not a little puzzled, before the servant admitted Ida. She was pale, and the look of sadness in her eyes was even more palpable than on the preceding night. She blushed for an instant as she gave her hand to Howard.
They were all there Griffenberg, Wirsch, the Beltons, Efford, and Fitzharford; and they were all smiling and in the best of humours, presenting by their appearance a striking contrast to that which they had worn when he had seen them on the night when the ruin of the company had been conveyed in that fatal cablegram.
Stafford stood beside his father as Sir Stephen went from group to group, greeting one and another in his frank and genial yet polished manner, which grew warm and marked by scarcely repressed pride, as he introduced Stafford. "My son, Lady Fitzharford. I think he has had the pleasure of meeting you? I scarcely know who are his friends: we have been separated so long!
"With the greatest pleasure, my dear lady," responded Howard; "but on two conditions: one, that you don't take my opinion; the other, that you leave me alone with Miss Heron, directly she comes, for a quarter of an hour." Lady Fitzharford stared at him. "Are you going to propose to her?" she asked, with a smile. "No," he replied; "I am tired of proposing."
"Lady Fitzharford has gone to get her music, Miss Heron," he said; "she bade me make her excuses; she will be here presently. It is so good of you to remember our appointment! When I came to think it over, I was quite ashamed, do you know, at the obtrusive way in which I pressed the subject of my friend, Lord Highcliffe's condition, upon you.
But through it all, weird and ghost-like shone Ida's girlish face, with its love-lit eyes and sweetly curving lips. He looked round, and presently he saw Maude Falconer in her strange and striking dress. She was dancing with Lord Fitzharford.
By the way, shall I spoil your lunch if I read you out a list of the guests whom we are expecting this afternoon? Sir Stephen was good enough to furnish me with it, with the amiable wish that I might find some friend on it. What do you say to Lord and Lady Fitzharford; the Countess of Clansford; the Baron Wirsch; the Right Honourable Henry Efford; Sir William and Lady Plaistow "
I, too, shall be going there probably?" She put her hand to her lips with a little nervous gesture: she was disappointed, she thought he was going to show her a letter, then and there. "I am going to Lady Fitzharford's to-morrow afternoon to try over some music with her," she said, hesitatingly. "Ah, yes; Lady Fitzharford is a good friend of mine," he said. "Shall you be there at, say, four?"
"Well, I don't think she would accept you," said Lady Fitzharford, "she has had the most wonderful offers; she has refused Lord Edwin, the Bannerdales' son and heir, and, I believe, the Duke of Glarn " "I know, I know!" said Howard, more quickly than usual. "I can hear her on the stairs. Oh, vanish, my dear lady, an' you love me!"
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