Then she passed by him still laughing, and the echo of her laughter came back to him long after the last gleam of her silks and laces had disappeared from sight.
A grand ball completed the celebration of George Newbold's birthday, and those who were perforce the wall-flowers of the occasion noticed, not without comment, that Mr. Tremain kept sedulously away from Miss Hildreth, and that Patricia danced more often with the dark Russian stranger than with any other of Mrs. Newbold's black-coated contingent. Or, as the men put it afterwards in the smoking-room, that conceited, distinguished, red-ribboned foreigner devoted himself exclusively to the most beautiful woman of the evening, with occasional relapses to the plainest girl.
It was thus that Miss Hildreth and Rosalie James divided the honours, if such they could be called, of Count Vladimir Mellikoff's attentions.
CHAPTER IX.
"IT IS HOPELESS."
True to his resolution, made more absolute than ever by Miss Hildreth's last openly displayed indifference, Mr. Tremain determined to leave the Folly on the first possible excuse. His visit had already prolonged itself far beyond its original limits, and in the departure of his friend Mainwaring, he saw a happy opportunity of effacing himself naturally and without too violent a wrench.
John Mainwaring had come down only for the theatricals, and nothing could be more à propos than for Philip to make his adieux with him. As for Patricia, he entertained no softer sentiment towards her than that of distinct disapprobation. He felt it would be a relief to get himself away from her influence and from the spell of her beauty. Twice now she had repudiated him and the love he pleaded; what better proof of her thorough deterioration could any man ask for than this? Could any words have been more sharp than hers, or speak more openly of defiance and glad rejection? Apparently she retained not one tender recollection of the past, or the smallest desire to recur to it. She met him always with cool raillery, mocking aphorisms, or taunting satire; she was hard, brilliant, unresponsive as the diamonds she wore so regally, and to throw oneself upon her sympathies was to wilfully grasp at the glittering sheen of unreality, and be wounded because the substance slipped from one's hold.
Away from her and once more absorbed in the work of his profession, Mr. Tremain felt he could forget her and the past few days of unrest and disquietude. The calm monotony of his personal self-centred routine became a haven of rest in his eyes, to which he looked forward with impatience; forgetting that it is one's inner state of being that makes or mars the tranquillity of one's existence.
Accordingly Mr. Tremain ordered the packing of his portmanteaux, and made known his coming departure the next morning at the very late breakfast hour, at which feast Esther and a few of her guests appeared languid and fatigued, and instant in their demands for the strongest black coffee.