into the
splendid ballroom. It was a splendid ballroom and a stately one, and
Lord Dunholm and Lord Westholt shared a certain thought when they met
her, which was that hers was distinctly the proud young brilliance of
presence which figured most perfectly against its background. Much as
people wanted to look at Sir Nigel, their eyes were drawn from him
to Miss Vanderpoel. After all it was she who made him an object of
interest. One wanted to know what she would do with him--how she would
"carry him off." How much did she know of the distaste people felt for
him, since she would not talk or encourage talk? The Dunholms could not
have invited her and her sister, and have ignored him; but did she not
guess that they would have ignored him, if they could? and was there not
natural embarrassment in feeling forced to appear in pomp, as it were,
under his escort?

But no embarrassment was perceptible. Her manner committed her to no
recognition of a shadow of a flaw in the character of her companion. It
even carried a certain conviction with it, and the lookers-on felt the
impossibility of suggesting any such flaw by their own manner. For this
evening, at least, the man must actually be treated as if he were an
entirely unobjectionable person. It appeared as if that was what the
girl wanted, and intended should happen.

This was what Nigel himself had begun to perceive, but he did not put it
pleasantly. Deucedly clever girl as she was, he said to himself, she
saw that it would be more agreeable to have no nonsense talked, and no
ruffling of tempers. He had always been able to convey to people that
the ruffling of his temper was a thing to be avoided, and perhaps she
had already been sharp enough to realise this was a fact to be counted
with. She was sharp enough, he said to himself, to see anything.

The function was a superb one. The house was superb, the rooms of
entertainment were in every proportion perfect, and were quite renowned
for the beauty of the space they offered; the people themselves were,
through centuries of dignified living, so placed that intercourse with
their kind was an easy and delightful thing. They need never doubt
either their own effect, or the effect of their hospitalities. Sir Nigel
saw about him all the people who held enviable place in the county. Some
of them he had never known, some of them had long ceased to recall his
existence. There were those among them who lifted lorgnettes or stuck
m