The night air struck upon his hot brow in a cool and welcome fashion, and Jack stood for a moment or two, fighting with the hazy and stupefying effects of the night's work.
"I won't go home yet," he muttered. "Len will be cut up; he always is. He's as bad as a father--almost as bad as a mother-in-law. Well, I didn't touch the cards, anyhow. And if it had not been for those two idiots, Ark and Dally, I shouldn't have got so far into the champagne. How bright the stars shine--an unaccountable number of them tonight." Poor Jack! "Never saw such a quantity! No, I won't go home yet. I'll walk it off if I have to walk till tomorrow morning. Where am I? Ah! where is _she_? Thank Heaven, she isn't near me now! I'm glad she's gone; I'm glad I shall never see her any more. I'm not fit to see her; not worthy to touch her hand. But I did touch it," and, with a kind of wonder at his audacity, he stretched out his hand and stared at it under the gas-lamp.
Then he walked on perfectly indifferent to the direction, perfectly indifferent to the weariness which was gradually--no, rapidly--coming on him.
Just at this time, while he was walking off the drowsy dream that had got possession of him, a stream of carriages was slowly moving down Park Lane, taking up from one of the best known houses in town--Lady Merivale's.
Lady Merivale was one of the leaders of _ton_ and had been one as long as most middle-aged people could remember. To be seen at Lady Merivale's was to be acknowledged as one of that small but powerful portion of humanity known as "the upper ten."
It was one of her ladyship's grand balls, and not only were the ball and drawing-rooms full, but the staircase also, and any one wishing to enter or exit had to make his way down a narrow line flanked on either side by the youth and nobility of the best kind of society.
That it had been a great success no one who knows the world--and Lady Merivale--needs to be told. It had, perhaps, been one of her greatest, for in addition to two princes of the blood royal, she had secured the great sensation of the day, the young millionairess, Lady Isabel Earlsley.
And this was no slight achievement, for Lady Bell, as she was generally called, was a wilful, uncertain young personage, from whom it was very hard to procure a promise, and who, not seldom, was given to breaking it when made, at least, so far as acceptation of invitations went.