"Will you come to the club and dine with me?" he said, when they walked home. Lord Blair shook his head.
"No, thanks, old fellow," he said. "I want to be alone. Don't think me a bear."
"No, no, I understand," said Austin Ambrose, as he shook hands; "go and dream of Margaret, and remember what I say, my dear fellow. A prize like that is never too quickly secured."
Blair wandered to his rooms, to pace up and down his sitting-room, and think over every word Margaret had said. Austin Ambrose went to his chambers, and having dressed carefully and leisurely, dined luxuriously at his club, and at half-past ten called a cab and had himself driven to Lady Marabout's, who had an "evening" that night. Lady Marabout's rooms were filled to overflowing when he entered, and he had to make his way through a crush that extended as far as the hall and stairs; but in his cool and leisurely fashion he reached the principal saloon at last, and having shaken hands with the hostess, who greeted him with a brave though tired smile, he bent his steps toward a small crowd that surrounded some favored person at the end of the room.
The favored person was Violet Graham, the heiress. The dragoon, Colonel Floyd, the Marquis of Aldmere, and other well-known men were round her—one holding her fan, another proffering her an ice, and a third looking over her ball carte in the hope of finding a vacant space; and she leant back on the settee smiling absently, and listening, "with half an ear," to their compliments and flattery.
Austin Ambrose made his way to her slowly, his opera hat under his arm, his clean-cut face serene and perfectly self-possessed.
"Is the dancing all over, or just begun?" he said, as he inclined his head before her. "I am too late for anything, I suppose?"
Nothing could have been cooler or more matter-of-fact than his words, or the tone in which they were uttered; but she looked up with a sudden flush.
"I don't dance the next; it is a square dance," she said. "Take me to some cool place—if there is a cool place, Mr. Ambrose!"