“There is a large party to-night?” he said, presently.

She nodded.

“Yes:  immense.  The biggest thing we—­I mean Sir Stephen—­has done.”  Her eyes fell for a moment.  “You will dance with me to-night—­twice, Stafford?”

“As many times as you like, of course,” he said.  “But I shall not get so many opportunities.  You will be too much sought after, as usual.”

She sighed.

“That is the one disadvantage of being engaged to you,” she said.  “Twice, then.  The second and the eleventh waltz.”

He nodded, and stood with the same absent preoccupation in his eyes; and she drew a little closer to him still; and as her eyes dwelt on his face with love’s hunger in them, she whispered: 

“You have not kissed me yet, Stafford.”

He bent and kissed her, and her lips clung to his in that most awful of appeals, the craving, the prayer from the soul that loves to the soul that refuses love in return.

“Ah, Stafford, if—­if it were all over, and we were away in the country somewhere?”

“Why don’t we go?” he asked, with absolute indifference to the social plots and schemes which were being woven round him.

She laughed.

“In a little while!  Sir Stephen wants a change; he is looking rather fagged—­”

“I’m not surprised!” said Stafford.  “It seems to me that my father rests neither night nor day—­”

“Ah, well, it will soon be over—­perhaps before you expect,” she said, smiling mysteriously.  “Hush!  Here he comes!  You bad boy, you have spoilt my hair,”—­she herself had disarranged it as she pressed against his breast.  “I must run away and have it put straight.”

Sir Stephen entered a moment after she had left the room.  He looked fagged to-night, as she had said; but his face lit up at sight of Stafford.

“Ah, my boy!” he exclaimed, holding Stafford’s hand for a moment or two and scanning him with his usual expression of pride and affection.  “We are going to have a big night:  the greatest crush we have had.  Didn’t I hear Maude’s voice?”

Stafford said that she had just gone out.  Sir Stephen nodded musingly, and glanced at Stafford’s grave face.

“I suppose the hurly-burly will be over presently,” he said, “and we can go down to the country.  Where would you like to go?”

Stafford shrugged his shoulders, and Sir Stephen eyed him rather sadly and anxiously.  This indifference of Stafford’s was quite a new thing.

“Don’t mind?  What do you say to Brae Wood, then?”

Stafford’s face flushed.

“Not there—­Wouldn’t it be rather hot at Bryndermere, sir?  Why not Scotland?”

Sir Stephen nodded.

“All right.  Wherever you like, my boy.  We’ve still got some years of the Glenfare place.  We’ll go there.  And, Stafford—­do you ever remember that I am getting old?”

Stafford laughed and looked at the handsome face affectionately and with the admiration and pride with which a son regards a good-looking father.