The faint scent of her hair mingled with his pleasurable sense of her frank originality. For the first time the bargain really appealed to him. He could not but see that she was easily the fairest of that crush of fair women, and to have her prostrated at the foot of his career was more subtly delicious than to have her surrender to his person. The ball was at his foot in surely the most tempting form that a ball could take. And the fact that he must leave her hurriedly to write the musical criticism that was the price of his stall, was not calculated to diminish his appreciation of all the kingdoms of the world which his temptress was showing him from her high mountain.
"Alas! I must go and write a notice," he sighed.
"Satan's Secretary?" she queried mischievously.
He started. Had he not been just thinking of her as a Satan in skirts?
"En attendant that I become Satan's master," he replied ambiguously, as he raised his hat.
"Oh, to drive off with him into the peace and solitude of Love—away from the grinding paths of ambition," thought Amber, when the horses pranced up.
IV
CROISÉ
"Women, not measures," said the reigning wit anent the administration which Amber's Salon held together, and in which her husband occupied a position quite disproportionate to his nominal office, and still more so to the almost unparalleled brevity of his career as a private member.