Already eight or nine guests had arrived besides Felix and Oliver.  Some had ridden a great distance to be present at the House Day.  They were all nobles, richly dressed; one or two of the eldest were wealthy and powerful men, and the youngest was the son and heir of the Earl of Essiton, who was then the favourite at Court.  Each had come with his personal attendants; the young Lord Durand brought with him twenty-five retainers, and six gentlemen friends, all of whom were lodged in the town, the gentlemen taking their meals at the castle at the same time as the Baron, but, owing to lack of room, in another apartment by themselves.  Durand was placed, or rather, quietly helped himself to a seat, next to the Lady Aurora, and of all the men there present, certainly there was none more gallant and noble than he.

His dark eyes, his curling hair short but brought in a thick curl over his forehead, his lips well shaped, his chin round and somewhat prominent, the slight moustache (no other hair on the face), formed the very ideal of what many women look for in a man.  But it was his bright, lively conversation, the way in which his slightly swarthy complexion flushed with animation, the impudent assurance and yet generous warmth of his manner, and, indeed, of his feelings, which had given him the merited reputation of being the very flower of the nobles.

With such a reputation, backed with the great wealth and power of his father, gentlemen competed with each other to swell his train; he could not, indeed, entertain all that came, and was often besieged with almost as large a crowd as the Prince himself.  He took as his right the chair next to Aurora, to whom, indeed, he had been paying unremitting attention all the morning.  She was laughing heartily as she sat down, at some sally of his upon a beauty at the Court.

The elder men were placed highest up the tables, and nearest the host, but to the astonishment of all, and not the least of himself, Oliver was invited by the Baron to sit by his side.  Oliver could not understand this special mark of favour; the others, though far too proud for a moment to resent what they might have deemed a slight upon them, at once began to search their minds for a reason.  They knew the Baron as an old intriguer; they attached a meaning, whether intended or not, to his smallest action.

Felix, crowded out, as it were, and unnoticed, was forced to take his seat at the end of the table nearest that set apart in the corner for the aged and honoured servitors of the family.  Only a few feet intervened between him and ancient henchmen; and he could not but overhear their talk among themselves, whispered as it was.  He had merely shaken hands with Aurora; the crowd in the drawing-room and the marked attentions of Durand had prevented the exchange of a single word between them.  As usual, the sense of neglect and injury over which he had so long brooded with little or no real cause (considering, of course, his position, and that the world can only see our coats and not our hearts), under these entirely accidental circumstances rose up again within him, and blinded him to the actual state of things.