The ball which Lady Clansford always gave about the middle of the

season is generally a very brilliant affair; but this year it was more

brilliant and, alas! more crowded than usual; for Lord Clansford was

connected, as everybody knows, with the great Trans-African Company,

and, as also everybody knows, that company had recovered from the blow

dealt it by the rising of the natives, and was now flourishing beyond

the most sanguine expectations of its owners; the Clansford coffers,

not to mention those of many other persons, were overflowing, and Lord

Clansford could afford a somewhat magnificent hospitality.

Howard, as he made his way up the crowded stairs, smiled cynically to

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himself as he caught sight of a little knot of financiers who stood

just outside the great doors of the _salon_. 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. Having succeeded at last in forcing an

entrance, and bowing over the hand of his noble hostess, which must

have sadly ached, and returned her mechanical words of welcome with a

smile as galvanic as her own, Howard sidled his way along the wall--a

waltz was in progress--and collided against the "beautiful and

bounteous" Bertie, who was mopping his brow and looking round

despairingly for his partner.

"Halloo, Howard!" he exclaimed. "Pretty old scrimmage, isn't it? Should

have thought your languid grace would have kept out of this sight. I've

given a dance to a girl, but dash my best necktie if I can find her:

might as well look for a needle in a bottle of hay--as if any fellow

would be such a fool as to put a needle in such a place. I'm jolly mad

at losing her, I can tell you, for she's the prettiest girl in the

room, and I had to fight like a coal-heaver to get a dance from her.

And now I can't find her: just my luck!"

"What is the name of the prettiest girl in the room?" asked Howard,

languidly.

"Oh, it's the new beauty, of course," replied Bertie, with a superior

little shrug at Howard's ignorance. "It's Miss. Heron of Herondale, the

great heiress."

Howard pricked up his ears, but maintained his languid and

half-indifferent manner.

"Miss Heron of Herondale," he said in his slow voice. "Don't think I've

met her."




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