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 circumstances, 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 glass. Stafford signed to him to place the bottle near and drank a couple of glasses.
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 passing 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 pass 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.