They were soon divested of their coats and hats, and, without entering on the magnificence of the great hall, were conducted through rather a narrow passage into rather a small drawing-room—­small, that is, in proportion to the number of gentlemen there assembled.  There might be about thirty, and Frank was inclined to think that they were almost crowded.  A man came forward to greet them when their names were announced; but our hero at once knew that he was not the duke; for this man was fat and short, whereas the duke was thin and tall.

There was a great hubbub going on; for everybody seemed to be talking to his neighbour; or, in default of a neighbour, to himself.  It was clear that the exalted rank of their host had put very little constraint on his guests’ tongues, for they chatted away with as much freedom as farmers at an ordinary.

‘Which is the duke?’ at last Frank contrived to whisper to his cousin.

‘Oh;—­he’s not here,’ said George; ’I suppose he’ll be in presently.  I believe he never shows till just before dinner.’

Frank, of course, had nothing further to say; but he already began to feel himself a little snubbed:  he thought that the duke, duke though he was, when he asked people to dinner should be there to tell them that he was glad to see them.

More people flashed into the room, and Frank found himself rather closely wedged in with a stout clergyman of his acquaintance.  He was not badly off, for Mr Athill was a friend of his own, who had held a living near Greshamsbury.  Lately, however, at the lamented decease of Dr Stanhope—­who had died of apoplexy at his villa in Italy—­Mr Athill had been presented with the better preferment of Eiderdown, and had, therefore, removed to another part of the county.  He was somewhat of a bon-vivant, and a man who thoroughly understood dinner-parties; and with much good nature he took Frank under his special protection.

‘You stick to me, Mr Gresham,’ he said, ’when we go into the dining-room.  I’m an old hand at the duke’s dinners, and know how to make a friend comfortable as well as myself.’

‘But why doesn’t the duke come in?’ demanded Frank.

‘He’ll be here as soon as dinner is ready,’ said Mr Athill.  ’Or, rather, the dinner will be ready as soon as he is here.  I don’t care, therefore, how soon he comes.’

He was beginning to be impatient, for the room was now nearly full, and it seemed evident that no other guests were coming; when suddenly a bell rang, and a gong was sounded, and at the same instant a door that had not yet been used flew open, and a very plainly dressed, plain, tall man entered the room.  Frank at once knew that he was at last in the presence of the Duke of Omnium.

But his grace, late as he was in commencing the duties as host, seemed in no hurry to make up for lost time.  He quietly stood on the rug, with his back to the empty grate, and spoke one or two words in a very low voice to one or two gentlemen who stood nearest to him.  The crowd, in the meanwhile, became suddenly silent.  Frank, when he found that the duke did not come and speak to him, felt that he ought to go and speak to the duke; but no one else did so, and when he whispered his surprise to Mr Athill, that gentleman told him that this was the duke’s practice on all such occasions.