Altogether, perhaps, there were fifty people, and an eye that looked for
the sentiment, the pity of things, would have distinguished at once on
about half the faces, especially those of the women, the used underlined
look that spoke of the continual play of muscle and forcing of feeling.
It gave them a shabbily complicated air, contrasting in a strained and
sorry way even with the countenances of the brokers and bankers, where
nature had laid on a smooth wash and experience had not interfered. They
were all gay and enthusiastic as Miss Howe entered; they loafed forward,
broad shirt-fronts lustrous, fat hands in financial pockets, with their
admiration, and Fillimore put out his cigarette. Hilda came down among
them from the summit of her achievement, clasping their various hands.
They were all personally responsible for her success, she made them feel
that, and they expanded in the conviction. She moved in a kind of tide
of infectious vitality, subtly drawing from every human flavour in the
room the power to hold and show something akin to it in herself, a
fugitive assimilation floating in the lamplight with the odour of the
flowers and the soup, to be extinguished with the occasion. They looked
at her up and down the table with an odd smiling attraction; they told
each other that she was in great form. Mr. Fillimore was of the opinion
that she couldn't be outclassed at the Lyceum, and Mr. Hagge responded
with vivacity that there were few places where she wouldn't stretch the
winner's neck. The feast was not, after all, one of great bounty, Mr.
Stanhope justly holding that the opportunity, the little gathering, was
the thing, and it was not long before the moment of celebration arrived
for which the gentlemen of the Stock Exchange, to judge from their
undrained glasses, seemed to be reserving themselves. There certainly
had been one tin of pate, and it circulated at that end; on the other
hand, the ladies had all the fondants. So that when Mr. Llewellyn
Stanhope rose with the sentiment of the evening, he found satisfaction,
if not repletion, in the regards turned upon him.

Llewellyn got up with modest importance, and ran a hand through his
yellow hair, not dramatically, but with the effect of collecting his
ideas. He leaned a little forward; he was extremely, happily
conspicuous. The attention of the two lines of faces seemed to overcome
him, for an instant, with dizzy pleasure; Hilda's beside him was bent a
little, w