"Otter-hounds," suggested John.
"Is it possible? Never saw it before. There goes Freemantle as a private in the Blues, saluting as he is introduced, instead of bowing. What a fund of humour the youth of the present day possess! Who is that bleached earwig he is dancing with?"
"I think it is Miss Crupps, the heiress."
"H'm! Might have known it. That is the sort of little pill that no one takes unless it is very much gilt. Here comes the Verelst party at last. Lady Verelst has put herself together well. I would not mind buying her at my valuation and selling her at her own. She hates me, that little painted saint. I always cultivate a genuine saint. I make a point of it. They may look deuced dowdy down here—they generally do, though I believe it is only their wings under their clothes; but they will probably form the aristocracy up yonder, and it is as well to know them beforehand. But Lady Verelst is a sham, and I hate shams. I am a sham myself. He! he! When last I met her she talked pious, and implied intimacy with the Almighty, till at last I told her that it was the vulgarest thing in life to be always dragging in your swell acquaintance. He! he! I shall go and speak to her directly she has done introducing her party. Mrs. Dundas—and—I don't know the other woman. Who is the girl in white?"
"Miss Everard."
"What! Hemsworth's sister? Then he will be here too, probably. I like Hemsworth. There's no more harm in that young man than there is in a tablet of Pears' soap. A crowned head next. Why, it's Di Tempest. By —— she is handsomer every time I see her! If that girl knew how to advertise herself, she might become a professional beauty."
"Heaven forbid!" said John, involuntarily, watching Di with the intense concentration of one who has long pored over memory's dim portrait, and now corrects it by the original.
Lord Frederick did not see the look. For once something escaped him. He too was watching Di, who with the remainder of the Verelst party was being drifted towards them by a strong current of fresh arrivals in their wake.
The usual general recognition and non-recognition peculiar to fancy balls ensued, in which old acquaintances looked blankly at each other, gasped each other's names, and then shook hands effusively; amid which one small greeting between two people who had seen and recognized each other from the first instant took place, and was over in a moment.
"I cannot recognize any one," said Di, her head held a shade higher than usual, looking round the room, and saying to herself, "He would not have spoken to me if he could have helped it."