"Thanks," said Bertie, "I'll think it over. I'll come and cut you out with the Mildmay heiress! Hah! hah!"
He laughed as Leicester turned to him with a look of mild surprise.
"You didn't know that I was posted up in that intelligence! I've a dozen little birds who bring me news night and morning, and I've heard----"
"Pshaw!" interrupted Leicester. "I've dined with mamma and papa at Mildmay Park, and that--that's positively all. My dear Bertie. I am not a marrying man; now you are, but, mark me, Lady Ethel Boisdale is not meant for you."
"Thank you," said Bertie, "I'm very much obliged, but who said that she was?"
And with a light laugh the subject was dropped.
That night when Lady Ethel Boisdale entered the magnificent saloons of Lady Darefield's mansion in Park Place she looked round the room with calm, yet expectant eyes, and dropped them very suddenly as they met the also searching and expectant gaze of Mr. Bertie Fairfax.
It is one thing to exchange glances and smiles with a belle in a ballroom, but quite another matter to get a dance with her.
The saloons were crowded by the best of the land, eligible parties were in abundance, and Mr. Bertie Fairfax, handsome, sweet-natured and lovable though he was, found himself somewhat out in the cold.
It was not an unusual position for him, and on other occasions he had laughed good-naturedly in the smoking-room of his club, saying that there had been too many iron pitchers going down the stream for such a fragile, unsatisfactory delf affair as himself to hope for success.
He wanted to dance with Lady Ethel Boisdale; why he could scarcely have told.
She was very beautiful; but he had seen faces far more lovely even than hers; she was very graceful, tall and full of a sweet, proud dignity, but Bertie Fairfax had seen some of the ladies of the Papal court, and remembered their faces.
She was, as it happened, just the realization of the young fellow's ideal, and--yet it must be written--he was already half in love with her.
Round her, forming a sort of bodyguard or watchdog, continually hovered in majestic grace the Countess of Lackland, her mamma.
Bertie was aware that her ladyship knew all about him, and that it was utterly vain to hope that he might be allowed to fill a vacant line in the Lady Ethel's little dancing programme.