Never in his life had McLagan seen Claire a creature so exquisite. And there flashed through his mind a memory of the girl of the headland, tortured by the threat of Bad Booker’s usurious terms. The change, the complete transformation, was amazing. There had been change before. He had seen it and delighted in it. But there had been nothing like this. This was the girl’s party gown. He understood that. She was----
Jubilee breathed his astonished admiration into McLagan’s ears, and was promptly silenced by a look.
Somewhat embarrassed Claire came down the room with heightened colour, and eyes that smiled almost shyly. It was the same sweet face which McLagan had always known. Only it lacked something of that natural freshness which the wind and the sun of the coast had bestowed upon it in her days on Lively Creek. The downy bloom of those days had been replaced by a suggestion of powder. Even her pretty lips seemed to have gained added ripeness from the careful touch of cosmetic. But the wide blue eyes, the even brows, and the rounded, perfectly moulded cheeks were the same, and, to the man’s thinking, even more beautiful.
But some of the delight McLagan felt as the girl came quickly towards him passed at once as he beheld the figure of Max close behind her. Many a night he had looked on at the centre table where Claire always played, and had even found amusement in observing the crowd of men of all conditions who never failed to gather like moths about a candle flame. He had watched them in their frantic efforts to win her ready smile, and it had filled him only with added pleasure in her beauty and simple charm.
But the sight of Max at that moment, with his sleek, dark head, and his carefully cut close beard, his immaculate clothes, and his good-looking foreign face, inspired a feeling he had never before experienced. He remembered the method of this girl’s entrance. The elaborate staginess of it. And he realised that Max had not designed an entrance for the most popular gambler in Beacon Glory. No. It was for the woman herself. And Max was rich and powerful, and without scruple. And, furthermore, with immense resources for achieving any purpose upon which he set his mind.