Howard did not start, but he stared in silence for an instant, then his eyelids flickered, and forcing the astonishment from his face, he took Stafford's left hand and shook it, and bowed to Maude.
"I do congratulate you with all my heart, my dear Stafford, and I hope you'll both be as happy as the happiest pair in a fairy story."
She drew her arm from Stafford's.
"I will go up now," she said. "Good-night!"
Stafford stood until she had got as far as the bend of the stairs; then Howard, who had discreetly gone on, turned to go back to him. But as he came up with a word of wonder and repeated congratulations, he saw Stafford put his hand to his forehead, and, as it seemed to Howard, almost stagger.
There are moments when the part of even one's best friend is silence, blindness. Howard turned aside, and Stafford went on slowly, with a kind of enforced steadiness, to the billiard-room. While Howard, with dismay and apprehension, was looking after him, he heard "Mr. Howard!" called softly, mockingly, from the stairs, and looking up, saw Maude Falconer leaning over, with her arm extended, her hand open.
He understood in a moment, and, removing his ring as he ran up the stairs, put it in the soft, pink palm. She gave a little triumphant, mocking laugh, her hand closed over the ring, and then she glided away from him.
The smoking-room was crowded as Stafford made his way in. Through the clouds of smoke he saw his father standing at one end, surrounded by the money-spinning crew, Falconer seated in a chair near him with a black cigar between his lips. The group were laughing and talking loudly, and all had glasses in their hands. Some of the younger men, who had just come from the hall-room, were adding their laughter and chatter to the noise. Dazed and confused, half mad with rage and despair, with a sense that Fate was joining her mocking laughter with that of the men round him. Stafford took a glass of wine from the butler who advanced with it, and drinking it off, held it out to be refilled. The man refilled it twice, and Stafford, his eyes aflame, almost pushed his way through the various groups to where his father stood.
"I have come for your congratulation, sir," he said, in a voice which, though not loud, was so clear as to break through the row. "Miss Falconer has promised to be my wife!"
A silence, so sudden as to be startling, fell upon the hot and crowded room; then, as Sir Stephen grasped his son's hand, a din of voices arose, an excited buzz of congratulations and good wishes. Stafford faced them all, his face pale and set, his lips curved with a forced smile, his eyes flashing, but lit with a sombre fire. There was a smile on his lips, a false amiability in his eyes, but there was so much of madness in his heart that he was afraid lest at any moment he should dash the glass to the ground and break out into cursing.