Part 64 (2/2)

Who knows? There is a certain person who has often a hold of her grandfather's ear! Ahem!”

Meantime the band is playing its newest, sweetest strains; the air is heavy with the scent of flowers. The low ripple of conversation and merry laughter rises above everything. The hours are flying all too swiftly.

”May I have the pleasure of this waltz with you?” Sir Penthony is saying, bending over Lady Stafford, as she sits in one of the numberless small, dimly-lit apartments that branch off the hall.

”Dear Sir Penthony, do you think I will test your good-nature so far?

You are kind to a fault, and I will not repay you so poorly as to avail myself of your offer. Fancy condemning you to waste a whole dance on your--wife!”

The first of the small hours has long since sounded, and she is a little piqued that not until now has he asked her to dance.

Nevertheless, she addresses him with her most charming smile.

”I, for my part, should not consider it a dance wasted,” replies he, stiffly.

”Is he not self-denying?” she says, turning languidly toward Lowry, who, as usual, stands beside her.

”You cannot expect me to see it in that light,” replies he, politely.

”May I hope for this waltz?” Sir Penthony asks again, this time very coldly.

”Not this one; perhaps a little later on.”

”As you please, of course,” returns he, as, with a frown and an inward determination never to ask her again, he walks away.

In the ball-room he meets Luttrell, evidently on the lookout for a missing partner.

”Have you seen Miss Ma.s.sereene?” he asks instantly. ”I am engaged to her, and can see her nowhere.”

”Try one of those nests for flirtation,” replies Stafford, bitterly, turning abruptly away, and pointing toward the room he has just quitted.

But Luttrell goes in a contrary direction. Through one conservatory after another, through ball-room, supper-room, tea-room, he searches without success. There is no Molly to be seen anywhere.

”She has forgotten our engagement,” he thinks, and feels a certain pang of disappointment that it should be so. As he walks, rather dejectedly, into a last conservatory, he is startled to find Marcia there alone, gazing with silent intentness out of the window into the garden beneath.

As he approaches she turns to meet his gaze. She is as pale as death, and her dark eyes are full of fire. The fingers of her hand twitch convulsively.

”You are looking for Eleanor?” she says, intuitively, her voice low, but vibrating with some hidden emotion. ”See, you will find her there.”

She points down toward the garden through the window where she has been standing, and moves away. Impelled by the strangeness of her manner, Luttrell follows her direction, and, going over to the window, gazes out into the night.

It is a brilliant moonlight night; the very stars s.h.i.+ne with redoubled glory; the chaste Diana, riding high in the heavens, casts over ”tower and stream” and spreading parks ”a flood of silver sheen;” the whole earth seems bright as gaudy day.

Beneath, in the shrubberies, pacing to and fro, are Molly and Philip Shadwell, evidently in earnest conversation. Philip at least seems painfully intent and eager. They have stopped, as if by one impulse, and now he has taken her hand. She hardly rebukes him; her hand lies pa.s.sive within his; and now,--_now_, with a sudden movement, he has placed his arm around her waist.

”Honor or no honor,” says Luttrell, fiercely, ”I will see it out with her now.”

Drawing a deep breath, he folds his arms and leans against the window, full of an agonized determination to know the worst.

Molly has put up her hand and laid it on Philip's chest, as though expostulating, but makes no vehement effort to escape from his embrace.

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