vely
bewildered. Could the father of that lovely girl be the wretch the world
hooted at? Could the owner of all this grandeur be the Beast I fancied
my private property?

Carriage-loads of elegantly attired women crowded each other in the
vestibule; dancing beaux congregated in the smoking-room; eminent
merchants, with their wives and daughters, wits of both sexes, women of
the most exclusive _ton_, thronged the spacious _salons_. Each in their
turn was greeted with a smirk of ecstatic glee. To Gripstone the
courtesy seemed invested with a proprietary interest. A nod was
receipted with a simper, a grasp of the hand with a scrape, the most
distant recognition by the most obsequious acknowledgment. There
appeared to be no doubt in his mind it was all bought and paid for, but
it did no harm to be polite for _once_; and comically polite he was.

I will not say he did not gradually begin to wear the look of a man who
had purchased an elephant; for he did. I found him late in the evening
posted behind a column and peering through the window at the assembled
merry-makers. It was evident he owned the whole party, and that every
ringing laugh went with the property; but to him it was a novel
investment, and perhaps more difficult to manage than any other article
he possessed. Partly from a dim consciousness that he had wandered
beyond his depth, and probably from the loneliness consequent to so
uncongenial a spectacle, a companion had become necessary; and, when I
approached, his jump of cordiality was as uncouth as it was unexpected.
So stunned were my senses by the extraordinary events, that, had he
cried out, "Come to my arms, my long-lost brother!" or were a
strawberry-mark actually found, I could not have been surprised. As it
was, his frenzied tugs at the lapel of my coat threatened its immediate
destruction, and my spinal column ached under his demoniac slaps on the
back, before I gasped out my congratulations.

Wine, excitement, or the society of one who at least had treated him
with common decency, warmed the little geniality that remained in him.

With a jerk he thrust me into his study, and, while thrilling music
swept through the echoing halls, and the solid flooring swayed under the
feet of the dancers, the Beast opened his heart. Shrinking, as though
'twere felony, from the penury of early life, flying from a brief hour
of married happiness, in wild triumph he plunged into the dreariness of
the upward struggle.