Two heavy curtains at the extreme end of the room were drawn apart, and the figure of a man appeared between them—a tall, thick-set man, in full evening-dress, with a large white flower in his button-hole. For a moment he stood still, looking intently down the room.
"Copplestone," Tranter whispered to his companion.
"Mon Dieu," muttered Monsieur Dupont.
It was the face of a fanatic—wonderful, fascinating, cruel—a fanatic who neither feared God nor regarded man—an infinite egotist. The fires of a great distorted soul smoldered in his eyes. The broad, lofty forehead proclaimed a mind that might have placed him among the rulers of men—but instead he was little above the level of a clown. The destinies of a nation might have rested in the hands that he turned only to selfish fantasy. The whole appearance of him, arresting and almost awe-inspiring as it undoubtedly was, had in it the repulsiveness of the unnatural—and, with that, all the tragedy of pitiful waste.
To-night, he confronted his guests in an attitude, and with an air, of triumph. But as Mrs. Astley-Rolfe turned quickly to him with something of a challenge in her bearing, a faint mocking smile appeared and lingered for a moment on his face. Then he moved aside, his hand on the curtains.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said deliberately, "permit me to present you to my fiancée—Miss Christine Manderson."
He drew the curtains apart.
"Mon Dieu," said Monsieur Dupont again.
A half-strangled sob came from the lips of Mrs. Astley-Rolfe. Tranter uttered an exclamation. The danseuse, the clergyman, and the theatrical manager burst into vigorous applause.
Framed in the darkness behind him was the white form of a woman, of transcendent loveliness. In the soft light it seemed almost a celestial figure. She smiled with entrancing sweetness, and held out her hands.