"I must not keep you any longer, my dear boy!" he said, with a fond, proud look. "I must not forget I am keeping you from--her! She will be missing you--wanting you. You have kept your secret well, Stafford--though once or twice I have fancied, when I have seen you together--but it was only a fancy!--Are you going to announce the engagement tonight? It is rather a good opportunity, isn't it? It will make the night memorable."

The music danced madly through Stafford's brain as his father waited, looking at him smilingly. What should he say?

"Not to-night, sir!" he answered. "I should like to speak to Miss Falconer first."

Sir Stephen nodded and smiled.

"I understand, my boy," he said. "This kind of thing is not done now as it was in my time. We used to take the girl of our choice by the hand and throw back our heads, and announce the fact that we have secured the prize, with all the pride imaginable. But that's all altered now. I suppose the new way is more delicate--more refined. At any rate, you belong to the new age and have a right to follow its manners and customs; so you shall say nothing to-night, unless you like. And, if I am asked why I look so happy, so free from care, I must say that it is because the great Railway Scheme is settled and that I have won all along the line."

As he said the last words there came a knock at the door, and Murray entered with an injured look.

"Mr. Griffenberg and Baron Wirsch, would like to see you, Sir Stephen,"

he said, significantly.

Sir Stephen sprang to the table almost with the alertness of a boy, and caught up the papers lying on his desk.

"All right, Murray!" he cried. "Sorry I'm late! Been having a talk with Mr. Stafford. Come on!"

With a nod, a smile, a tender look of love and grat.i.tude to Stafford, the brilliant adventurer, once more thrown by the buoyant wave upon the sh.o.r.e of safety and success, went out to communicate that success to his coadjutors.

Stafford sank into his father's chair, and with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and his chin upon his chest, tried to clear his brain, to free his mind from all side issues, and to face the fact that he had tacitly agreed, that by his silence he had consented to marry Maude Falconer.

But, oh, how hard it was to think clearly, with the vision of that girlish face floating before him! the exquisitely beautiful face with its violet eyes now arched and merry, now soft and pleading, now tender with the tenderness of a girl's first, true, divinely trusting love. He was looking at the book-case before him, but a mist rose between it and his eyes, and he saw the mountain-side and the darling of his heart riding down it, the sunlight on her face, the soft tendrils of hair blown rough by the wind, the red lips apart with a smile--the little grave smile which he had kissed away into deeper, still sweeter seriousness.

And he had lost her! Oh, G.o.d, how he loved her! And he had lost her forever! There was no hope for him. He must save his father--not his father's money. That counted for nothing--but his father's honour--his father's good name.

And even if he were not bound to make this sacrifice, to marry Maude Falconer, how could he go to Heron Hall and ask G.o.dfrey Heron, the man of ancient lineage, of unsullied name, to give his daughter to the son of a man whose past was so black that his character was at the mercy of Ralph Falconer? Stafford rose and stretched out his arms as if to thrust from him a weight too grievous to be borne, a cup too bitten to be drained; then his arms fell to his sides and, with a hardening of the face, a tightening of the lips which made him look strangely like his father, he left the library, and crossing the hall, made his way to the ball-room.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The ball was at its height. Even the coldest and most _blase_ of the guests had warmed up and caught fire at the blaze of excitement and enjoyment. The ball-room was dazzling in the beauty of its decorations and the soft effulgence of the shaded electric light, in which the magnificent jewels of the t.i.tled and wealthy women seemed to glow with a subdued and chastened fire. A dance was in progress, and Stafford, as he stood by the doorway and looked mechanically and dully at the whirling crowd, the kaleidoscope of colour formed by the rich dresses, the fluttering fans, and the dashes of black represented by the men's clothes, thought vaguely that he had never seen anything more magnificent, more elegant of wealth and success. But through it all, weird and ghost-like shone Ida's girlish face, with its love-lit eyes and sweetly curving lips.

He looked round, and presently he saw Maude Falconer in her strange and striking dress. She was dancing with Lord Fitzharford. There was not a touch of colour in her face, her lips were pensive, her lids lowered; she looked like an exquisite statue, exquisitely clothed, moving with the exquisite poetry of motion, but quite devoid of feeling. Suddenly, as if she felt his presence, she raised her eyes and looked at him. A light shot into them, glowed for a moment, her lips curved with the faintest of smiles, and a warm tint stole to her face.

It was an eloquent look, one that could not be mistaken by the least vain of men, and it went straight through Stafford's heart; for it forced him to realise that which he had not even yet quite realised--that he had tacitly pledged himself to her. Under other circ.u.mstances, the thought might have set his heart beating and sent the blood coursing hotly through his veins; but with his heart aching with love for Ida, and despair at the loss of her, Maude Falconer's love-glance only chilled him and made him shudder with apprehension of the future, with the thought of the cost of the sacrifice which he had taken upon himself. The music sounded like a funeral march in his ears, the glitter, the heat, the movement, seemed unendurable; and he threaded his way round the room to an ante-room which had been fitted up as a buffet.

"Give me some wine, please," he said to the butler, trying to speak in his ordinary tone; but he knew that his voice was harsh and strained, knew that the butler noticed it, though the well-trained servant did not move an eyelid, but opened a bottle of champagne with solemn alacrity and poured out a gla.s.s. Stafford signed to him to place the bottle near and drank a couple of gla.s.ses.

It pulled him together a bit, and he was going back to the ball-room when several men entered. They were Griffenberg, Baron Wirsch, the Beltons and the other financiers; they were all talking together and laughing, and their faces were flushed with triumph. Close behind them, but grave and taciturn as usual, came Mr. Falconer.

At sight of Stafford, Mr. Griffenberg turned from the man to whom he was talking and exclaimed, gleefully:

"Here is Mr. Orme! You have herd the good news, I suppose, Mr. Orme?

Splendid isn't it? Wonderful man, you father, truly wonderful! He can give us all points, can't he, baron?" The baron nodded and smiled.

"Shir Stephen ish a goot man of pishness. You have a very glever fader, Mr. Orme!" he said, emphatically.

Efford caught Stafford's arm as he was pa.s.sing on with a mechanical smile and an inclination of the head.

"We've come in for a drink, Orme," he said. "We're going to drink luck to the biggest thing Sir Stephen has ever done; you'll join us? Oh, come, we can't take a refusal! Dash it all! You're in the swim, Orme, if you haven't taken any active part in it."

Stafford glanced at Mr. Falconer, and noticed a grim smile pa.s.s over his face. If these exultant and flushed money-spinners only guessed how active a part he had taken, how amazed they would be! A wave of bitterness swept over him. At such a moment men, especially young men, become reckless; the strain is too great, and they fly to the nearest thing for relief.

He turned back to the buffet, and the butler and the couple of footmen opened several bottles of champagne--none of the men knew or cared how many; several others of the financial group joined the party; the wine went round rapidly; they were all talking and laughing except Stafford, who remained silent and grave and moody for some little time; then he too began to talk and laugh with the others, and his face grew flushed and his manner excited.

Falconer, who stood a little apart, apparently drinking with the others, but really with care and moderation, watched him under half-lowered lids; and presently he moved round to where Stafford leant against the table with his champagne-gla.s.s in his hand, and touching him on the arm, said:

"I hear them enquiring for you in the ball-room, Stafford."

It was the first time he had called Stafford by his Christian name, and it struck home, as Falconer had intended it should. Stafford set his gla.s.s down and looked round as a man does when the wine is creeping up to his head, and he is startled by an unexpected voice.

"All right--thanks!" he said.

He made his way through the group, who were too engrossed and excited to notice his desertion and went into the ball-room. As he did so, his father entered by an opposite door, and seeing him, came round to him, and taking Stafford's hand that hung at his side, pressed it significantly.

"I have told them!" he said. "They are almost off their heads with delight--you see, it's such a big thing, even for them, Staff! You have saved us all, my boy; but it is only I and Falconer who know it, only I who can show my grat.i.tude!"

His voice was low and tremulous, his face flushed, like those of the men whom Stafford had just left, and his dark eyes flashing and restless.

"Where are they all?" he asked; and Stafford nodded over his shoulder towards the buffet.

Sir Stephen looked round the room with a smile of triumph, and his glance rested on Maude Falconer, standing by a marble column, her eyes downcast, her fan moving to and fro in front of her white bosom.

"She is beautiful, Staff!" he whispered. "The loveliest woman in the room! I am not surprised that you should have fallen in love with her."

Stafford laughed under his breath, a strangely wild and bitter laugh, which Sir Stephen could not have failed to notice if the music had not commenced a new waltz at that moment.

Stafford went straight across the room to Maude Falconer. She did not raise her eyes at his approach, but the colour flickered in her cheeks.

"This is our dance, I think," he said.

She looked up with a little air of surprise, and consulted her programme.

"No; I think this is mine, Miss Falconer," said the man at her side.

"No," she said, calmly; "the next is yours, Lord Bannerdale; this is Mr. Orme's."

Though he knew she was wrong, of course Lord Bannerdale acquiesced with a bow and a smile, and Stafford led Maude away.

Wine has a trick of getting into some men's feet and promptly giving them away; but Stafford, though he was usually one of the most moderate of men, could drink a fairly large quant.i.ty and remain as steady as a rock. No one, watching him dance, would have known that he had drunk far too many gla.s.ses of champagne and that his head was burning, his heart thumping furiously; but though his step was as faultless as usual and he steered her dexterously through this crowd. Maude knew by his silence, by his flushed face and restless eyes, that something had happened, and that he was under the influence of some deep emotion. He was dancing quite perfectly, but mechanically, like a man in a dream, and though he must have heard the music, he did not hear her when she spoke to him, but looked straight before him as if he were entirely absorbed in some thought.

When they came, in the course of the dance, to one of the doors, she stopped suddenly.

"Do you mind? It is so hot," she murmured.