He opened a door into an anteroom thronged with people laughing and chatting. The sound of the music was clear and loud, with the voices striking through its cadences. Across this he led Wynne, to the wide door of a ball-room flooded with light and full of moving figures.
The brilliant glare of lights, the strident sound of dance-music, the enlivening sense of a living, vivaciously stirring company of gayly dressed merrymakers, assailed Maurice as he followed his guide across the anteroom. At the door of the ball-room he was for a moment hindered by a group of men who were lounging and chatting there. All his senses were keenly alert, and he perhaps unconsciously listened to hear if there were any comment on his appearance in such a place. He had not realized what he was coming into, and now that it was too late for him to withdraw without sacrificing his pride, he saw how incongruous his presence really was. Almost instantly he caught a name.
"By Jove!" one of the men said. "Isn't the Wilson in great form to-night! That diamond on her toe must be worth a fortune."
"She saves the price in the materials of her gowns," another responded lightly. "I never saw her with quite so little on."
"No material is allowed to go to waist there," put in a third.
"She has two straps and a rosebud," yet another voice laughed; "and nothing else above the belt but diamonds."
"Her very smile is décolleté" some one commented. "This is one of her nights. When I see Mrs. Wilson with that expression, I am prepared for anything."
Maurice felt his cheeks burn at this light talk. It seemed to him ribald, and he was outraged that the name of a woman should be bandied about so carelessly. He raised his head and set his square jaw defiantly; then began to push his way through the group, keenly conscious of the stare which greeted him.
"Hallo! What the devil's that?" he heard behind him.
"The skeleton at the feast," responded one voice.
"Oh, it's some devilish trick of Mrs. Wilson's, of course," put in another.
All this Maurice heard with an outraged sense that there was no attempt to prevent him from hearing. He might have been a servant or a piece of furniture for any restraint these men put upon their speech. He was troubled with the fear of what absurdity Mrs. Wilson might intend. Now that he was here, however, he would go on. The natural obstinacy of his temper asserted itself, and if there was little pious meekness in his spirit at that moment, there was plenty of grit.