The servants of the hotel, who were on the watch for a sight of her as she went to her carriage, thought her not only one of the most lovely, but one of the most fortunate of women; and so did the majority of the gay company at the Town Hall, when she made her appearance amongst them.
She had come back from Europe and all her sea-voyaging, in excellent physical health, and the last year or two of her life, in spite of sorrowful vicissitudes, had ripened and developed her beauty in a very marked degree.
She was dressed in white, but with great richness, of course—her husband had seen to that; covered with precious lace, that was as attractive to the eyes of the Melbourne ladies as the delicacy of her pure complexion was to those of the men. And she wore her necklace of diamond stars, and diamonds on her arms, and on her bosom, and in her hair; and she was altogether very magnificent, and made a great sensation.
Amongst her many admirers she noticed, when she had been in the room a little while, a short, stout man, of about forty or fifty years of age, apparently, who was a stranger to her, regarding her with much attention.
He had rather an air of distinction about him in spite of his low stature, and a noticeable absence of beauty; and she had a dim—very dim—impression that she had seen him, or someone like him, before.
He wore a fair moustache but no beard or whiskers, and his florid face was marked down one side with the puckered white scar of an old wound.
His eyes were quick and bright, and the keen observation that he brought to bear upon her through an eyeglass that he put into one of them whenever she came near, obviously with the intention of studying her to the best advantage, was a little disconcerting even to an acknowledged beauty.
She was waltzing with Mr. Buxton—it was her second waltz, and he danced very well—when suddenly, high in the air over her head, the great clock chimed eleven, and all the associations of that sacred hour gathered like ghosts around her, Roden Dalrymple holding the lighted match to his watch, while she sheltered the little flame from the wind—her head touching his cheek and his huge moustache as they looked down together to see the time—the mystic light and stillness of the peaceful night, through which the sound of the city bells came up to them, to warn them that their happiness was a thing too good to last.
"Eleven p.m.," he had called it; and "you must go home, little one," he had said. Could it have been at that moment that he meant to send her away so far, and never to take her back to his arms and his heart again?
"Aw—what's the matter? Are you dizzy?" asked her partner, feeling a break and a jar in the rhythm of the measure that had been flowing so very harmoniously.