Of course the situation had been so much discussed that people were naturally on the lookout for the arrival of the Stornham party, as it was known that Sir Nigel had returned home, and would be likely to present himself with his wife and sister-in-law.  There was not a dowager present who did not know how and where he had reprehensibly spent the last months.  It served him quite right that the Spanish dancing person had coolly left him in the lurch for a younger and more attractive, as well as a richer man.  If it were not for Miss Vanderpoel, one need not pretend that one knew nothing about the affair—­in fact, if it had not been for Miss Vanderpoel, he would not have received an invitation—­and poor Lady Anstruthers would be sitting at home, still the forlorn little frump and invalid she had so wonderfully ceased to be since her sister had taken her in hand.  She was absolutely growing even pretty and young, and her clothes were really beautiful.  The whole thing was amazing.

Betty, as well as Rosalie and Nigel—­knew that many people turned undisguisedly to look at them—­even to watch them as they came into the splendid ballroom.  It was a splendid ballroom and a stately one, and Lord Dunholm and Lord Westholt shared a certain thought when they met her, which was that hers was distinctly the proud young brilliance of presence which figured most perfectly against its background.  Much as people wanted to look at Sir Nigel, their eyes were drawn from him to Miss Vanderpoel.  After all it was she who made him an object of interest.  One wanted to know what she would do with him—­how she would “carry him off.”  How much did she know of the distaste people felt for him, since she would not talk or encourage talk?  The Dunholms could not have invited her and her sister, and have ignored him; but did she not guess that they would have ignored him, if they could? and was there not natural embarrassment in feeling forced to appear in pomp, as it were, under his escort?

But no embarrassment was perceptible.  Her manner committed her to no recognition of a shadow of a flaw in the character of her companion.  It even carried a certain conviction with it, and the lookers-on felt the impossibility of suggesting any such flaw by their own manner.  For this evening, at least, the man must actually be treated as if he were an entirely unobjectionable person.  It appeared as if that was what the girl wanted, and intended should happen.

This was what Nigel himself had begun to perceive, but he did not put it pleasantly.  Deucedly clever girl as she was, he said to himself, she saw that it would be more agreeable to have no nonsense talked, and no ruffling of tempers.  He had always been able to convey to people that the ruffling of his temper was a thing to be avoided, and perhaps she had already been sharp enough to realise this was a fact to be counted with.  She was sharp enough, he said to himself, to see anything.