"Is not about," said Miss Hatch, who hurried away with her short, nervous steps before Koltsoff had opportunity for questioning her further.
He glared at her retreating form and was about to follow her, when Mr. Wellington interposed.
"Hello, Koltsoff," he said, "come and have a bite with us before you go upstairs. We missed you in the billiard room."
Koltsoff bowed ceremoniously.
"Thank you, but no," he replied. "I have eaten a sandwich or so in the smoking-room. If you will permit, I shall retire until the,—ah, ball."
"All right. By the way, Koltsoff, you have seemed off your feed for the past twenty-four hours. I am sorry if I upset you. You, of course, were sensible to see my position."
"Oh, perfectly," responded the Russian with an ill-concealed sneer—in fact, it was not concealed at all—as he turned toward the stairway.
When Armitage took up his position near the head of the stairs about nine-thirty o'clock, the house was ablaze with lights, but the lower floors were deserted, save for the servants loitering about the hall. These men, all in the Wellington livery—short jackets and trousers of navy blue, with old gold cord—impressed Jack, inasmuch as they suggested in some way a sense of belonging to the household, which they did naturally, and not as servants merely engaged—or loaned—for the function. Mrs. Wellington and her husband came down at ten o'clock and took a position near the ballroom door, just as a group of early arrivals trouped up the stairs. Armitage didn't approve of Mrs. Wellington. In her creamy ball gown and tiara and jewels, she was majestic and imperious to a stunning degree, but to the young naval officer—or shall we say detective—she suggested for the first time the distinction of caste. The immeasurable distance created by the millions of dollars and the social prestige of Belle Wellington and those like her, served to set them aloof from their countrymen and countrywomen. As she walked along at the side of her hulking husband she seemed the very embodiment of the aloofness of her caste. Heretofore, Jack had regarded her as a distinctly interesting, remarkably well-preserved, middle-aged gentlewoman of striking mentality, a woman whom he could like and enjoy. To-night, he admitted, she inspired in him nothing but emotions of fear.
Mentally, he fortified himself against the appearance of Anne Wellington, who, in truth, merited this precaution as she stepped past him with a slight nod and went down the stairs. She was not a bit overdone—Jack admitted that at once—and yet, how different she was from the girl in the shirtwaist suit and black hat, whom he had seen entering the sight-seeing barge the previous day, or who swathed in his navy coat, his hat pushed down over her eyes, had stood with him on the bridge of the D'Estang! She was all in white, slim, supple, without jewelry, save for a string of pearls about her neck. A light, filmy veil was thrown across her bare shoulders and the living curls and waves of her flawless coiffure gleamed as they caught the lights of the chandeliers. And yet—! The girlishness which Jack had found so attractive in her, was missing, and so was the characteristic animation of her features. Instead, her face was set in a formal, politely interested expression, which to Armitage seemed to change her entire personality. Yesterday she was radiant, light-hearted, impulsive, and thoroughly lovable. To-night, she was, so to say, a professional beauty, "rigged and trigged" for competition; one of a set whose ambitions, apparently, coveted no triumphs more exalted than those to be gained here, who rated artificiality as a fine art and appraised life upon the basis of standards which even the casual observer would hardly pronounce either moral or exalted.