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
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."