he had seen them on the night when the ruin of the company had been conveyed in that fatal cablegram.  Having succeeded at last in forcing an entrance, and bowing over the hand of his noble hostess, which must have sadly ached, and returned her mechanical words of welcome with a smile as galvanic as her own, Howard sidled his way along the wall—­a waltz was in progress—­and collided against the “beautiful and bounteous” Bertie, who was mopping his brow and looking round despairingly for his partner.

“Halloo, Howard!” he exclaimed.  “Pretty old scrimmage, isn’t it?  Should have thought your languid grace would have kept out of this sight.  I’ve given a dance to a girl, but dash my best necktie if I can find her:  might as well look for a needle in a bottle of hay—­as if any fellow would be such a fool as to put a needle in such a place.  I’m jolly mad at losing her, I can tell you, for she’s the prettiest girl in the room, and I had to fight like a coal-heaver to get a dance from her.  And now I can’t find her:  just my luck!”

“What is the name of the prettiest girl in the room?” asked Howard, languidly.

“Oh, it’s the new beauty, of course,” replied Bertie, with a superior little shrug at Howard’s ignorance.  “It’s Miss.  Heron of Herondale, the great heiress.”

Howard pricked up his ears, but maintained his languid and half-indifferent manner.

“Miss Heron of Herondale,” he said in his slow voice.  “Don’t think I’ve met her.”

“No?  Dessay not.  She doesn’t go out much, and Lady Clansford thinks it’s rather a feather in her cap getting her here to-night.  When you see her you won’t say I’ve over-praised her.  She’s more than pretty, and she’d be the bright and particular star of the season if she didn’t keep in her shell so much.”

“Herondale,” said Howard, musingly.  “That’s the place near the Villa, isn’t it?  I don’t remember anyone of her name as having been amongst the company there.”

“No,” said the omniscient Bertie.  “She was living in retirement with her father then; but Stafford must have known her—­made her acquaintance.  Don’t you remember that she was present when poor Miss Falconer met with her fatal accident?”

Howard remembered very well, but he said “Ah, yes!” as if the fact had just been recalled to him.

“Her father died and left her a hatful of money—­that’s ever so many months ago—­and now she’s come up to London; and I tell you, Howard, that it is with her as it was with the friend of our school-boy days:  ‘I came, “I was seen,” I conquered!’ Everybody is mad about her.  She is staying with some country people called the Vaynes, people who would have passed, like a third entree, unnoticed; but they are deluged with invitations, and ‘All on account of Eliza.’”

“Do not be vulgar, Bertie,” said Howard, rebukingly.