"I have the best of reasons for saying so," said Stafford, carelessly,

and with a touch of colour in his face. "But it's all dashed nonsense!

The women always think there's something serious going on if you dance

twice with a girl, or sit and talk to her for half an hour."

"Right!" said Howard, rising. "There's the bell!"

As Howard had said, there was an air of suppressed excitement about the

people; and it was not confined to the financiers who clustered

together in the hall and discussed and talked in undertones, every now

and then glancing up the stairs down which Sir Stephen would presently

descend. Most of the other guests, though they had no direct and

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personal interest in the great scheme, more or less had heard rumours

and come within reflective radius of the excitement; as for the rest,

who knew nothing or cared less for Sir Stephen's railway, they were in

a pleasant condition of excitement over the coming dance.

Stafford, as he stood in the hall talking about the night's programme

to Bertie--who had been elected, by common and tacit consent, master of

the ceremonies--saw Maude Falconer descending the stairs. She was even

more exquisitely dressed than usual; and Stafford heard some of the

women and men murmur admiringly and enviously as she swept across the

hall in her magnificent ball-dress; her diamonds, for which she was

famous, glittering in her hair, on her white throat, and on her slender

wrists. The dress was a mixture of grey and black, which would have

looked _bizarre_ on anyone else less beautiful; but its strange tints

harmonised with her superb and classic class of beauty, and she looked

like a vision of loveliness which might well dazzle the eyes of the

beholders.

She paused in her progress--it might almost be called a triumphant one,

for the other women's looks were eloquent of dismay--and looked at

Stafford with the slow, half-dreamy smile which had come into her face

of late when she spoke to him.

"Have you seen my father? Has he come down, Mr. Orme?" she asked.

"No," said Stafford. He looked at her, as a man does when he admires a

woman's dress, and forgetting Howard's words of warning, said: "What a

splendacious frock, Miss Falconer!"

"Do you like it? I am glad," she said. "I had my doubts, but now--"

Her eyes rested on his for a moment, then she passed on.

"I shouldn't like to have to pay Miss Falconer's dress bill," remarked

a young married woman, looking after her. "That 'frock' as you call it,

in your masculine ignorance, must have cost a small fortune."




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