That was the story of the prodigal son.  Mrs. Walraven asked no questions.  She was a wise old woman; she took her son and was thankful.  It had happened late in October, this sudden arrival, and now, late in November, the fatted calf was killed, and Mrs. Walraven’s dear five hundred friends bidden to the feast.

And they came.  They had all heard the story of the widow’s heir, so long lost, and now, dark and mysterious as Count Lara, returned to lord it in his ancestral halls.  He was a very hero of romance—­a wealthy hero, too—­and all the pretty man-traps on the avenue, baited with lace and roses, silk and jewels, were coming to-night to angle for this dazzling prize.

The long-silent drawing-rooms, shrouded for twenty years in holland and darkness, were one blaze of light at last.  Flowers bloomed everywhere; musicians, up in a gilded gallery, discoursed heavenly music; there was a conservatory where alabaster lamps made a silver moonlight in a modern Garden of Eden; there was a supper-table spread and waiting, a feast for the gods and Sybarites; and there was Mrs. Walraven, in black velvet and point lace, upright and stately, despite her sixty years, with a diamond star of fabulous price ablaze on her breast.  And there by her side, tall, and dark, and dignified, stood her only son, the prodigal, the repentant, the wealthy Carl Walraven.

“Not handsome,” said Miss Blanche Oleander, raising her glass, “but eminently interesting.  He looks like the hero of a sensation novel, or a modern melodrama, or one of Lord Byron’s poems.  Does he dance, and will he ask me, I wonder?”

Yes, the dusky hero of the night did dance, and did ask Miss Blanche Oleander.  A tall, gray-eyed, imperious sort of beauty, this Miss Blanche, seven-and-twenty years of age, and frightfully passée, more youthful belles said.

Mr. Walraven danced the very first dance with Miss Oleander, to her infinite but perfectly concealed delight.

“If you can imagine the Corsair, whirling in a rapid redowa with Medora,” Miss Oleander afterward said, “you have Mr. Walraven and myself.  There were about eighty Guinares gazing enviously on, ready to poniard me, every one of them, if they dared, and if they were not such miserable little fools and cowards.  When they cease to smell of bread and butter, Mr. Walraven may possibly deign to look at them.”

It seemed as if the dashing Blanche had waltzed herself straight into the affections of the new-found heir, for he devoted himself to her in the most prononcé manner for the first three hours, and afterward led her in to supper.

Miss Blanche sailed along serene, uplifted, splendidly calm; the little belles in lace, and roses, and pearls, fluttered and twittered like angry doves; and Mme. Walraven, from the heights of her hostess-throne, looked aslant at her velvet and diamonds with uneasy old eyes.

“The last of all you should have selected,” she said, waylaying her son after supper.  “A woman without a heart, Carl—­a modern Minerva.  I have no wish to interfere with you, my son; I shall call the day happy that brings me your wife, but not Blanche Oleander—­not that cold-blooded, bold-faced, overgrown grenadier.”