General Wheelwright, forging through the eddying swarm of dancers, glittered with gold and braid, but it was not at the great man Thorne was staring with such evident approval. At the officer's side stepped a tall, beautifully shaped woman in clinging Ionian spider-weave, her skin glowing brilliantly in the intricate patterns of the skin-tight gown. Her ebon hair, shoulder-length, bore a single brilliant jewel at the ear, but it was her eyes which held Thorne.
Grey-blue as a summer storm, they scanned him as she walked forward, a faint smile parting her lips at his open admiration. It was an approval he made no effort to conceal, for Jeff Thorne, International, honored no convention against his will, nor had he need. His vast wealth enfolded him like a mantle, and few men on Earth or Mars or any other planet took pleasure in measuring wits or steel with him. Slowly he moved forward to meet the General, the dancers parting unobtrusively before him.
Many eyes followed him, a tall, commanding figure in the heavily brocaded white silk tunic, the broad golden stripe of the International still upon the shimmering black of his close-fitting trousers. Gold sparkled on chest and shoulders and jewels in the hilt of the short, heavy sword slung at his left hip in ceremonial homage to the first Martian colonists. In honor of these, too, was the crisp white turban about the gold-shot scarlet fez, symbolizing the blood they shed and the purity of the ideals for which so many of them had died. The five moonstones of the order of Larcanston glowed sullenly red on his broad chest.
"I hoped you'd be here, Thorne," the General greeted him, as heartily as though he had not made grimly certain the young man would attend. "May I present Miss Iris Chanler, Senator to the Council. Miss Chanler, Captain Thorne." There was a chill disapproval in the General's starched tones.
As they bowed and swept away in the ensuing dance, he joined Bannerman stiffly and stood watching the gay throng with an expression as dour as he could muster.
Thorne and the girl swung lightly in spiraling circles, fingers interlaced, in the intricate, graceful steps of the latest Venusian Glide Roll, the dancers melting about them in light-hearted disregard of all official dignity.
"A handsome couple, sir," nodded Bannerman.
"Handsome enough," agreed Wheelwright, clasping his hands behind him and following the two with brooding, stormy eyes. "Thorne seems to know his business."
He was promptly about it. As the girl melted into his arms, following his every lead with exquisite grace, he grinned down at her upturned, challenging face.