It was hot at Woodgreen; but it was hotter still in Mayfair, where the

season was drawing to a close with all the signs of a long-spun-out and

exhausting dissolution. Women were waxing pale under the prolonged

strain of entertainments which for the last week or two had been

matters of duty rather than pleasure, and many a girl who had entered

the lists of society a blushing and hopeful _débutante_ with perhaps a

ducal coronet in her mind's eye, was beginning to think that she would

have to be content with, say, the simpler one of a viscountess; or even

to wed with no coronet at all. Many of the men were down at Cowes or

golfing at St. Andrews; and those unfortunates who were detained in

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attendance at the house which continued to sit, like a "broody hen," as

Howard said, longed and sighed for the coming of the magic 12th of

August, before which date they assured themselves the House _must_ rise

and so bring about their long-delayed holiday.

But one man showed no sign of weariness or a desire for rest; Sir

Stephen's step was light and buoyant as ever on the hot pavement of

Pall Mall, and on the still hotter one of the city; his face was as

cheery, his manner as gay, and his voice as bright and free from care

as those of a young man.

There is no elixir like success; and Sir Stephen was drinking deeply of

the delicious draught. He had been well known for years: he was famous

now. You could not open a newspaper without coming upon his name in the

city article, and in the fashionable intelligence. Now it was a report

of the meeting of some great company, at which Sir Stephen had

presided, at another time it occurred in a graphic account of a big

party at the house he had rented at Grosvenor Square. It was a huge

mansion, and the rent ran into many figures; but, as Howard remarked,

it did not matter; Sir Stephen was rich enough to rent every house in

the square. Sir Stephen had taken over the army of servants and lived

in a state which was little short of princely: and lived alone; for

Stafford, who was not fond of a big house and still less fond of a

large retinue, begged permission to remain at his own by no means

over-luxurious but rather modest rooms.

It is not improbable that he would have liked to have absented himself

from the grand and lavish entertainments with which his father

celebrated the success of his latest enterprise; but it was not

possible, and Stafford was present at the dinners and luncheons,

receptions and concerts which went on, apparently without a break, at

Clarendon House.




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