"Oh, yes," he said, as they started again. "Jasper has put two thousand
more of mine on to-day. There he is," he broke off, as the sleek,
carefully dressed figure of Mr. Vermont entered the ball-room.
"Talk of angels," murmured Lady Merivale, but with a glance implying
that she meant a being very far removed from that celestial grade.
Jasper Vermont did not excel at dancing; yet, strange to say, he was
invariably invited to every big function of the season. Indeed, the
hostesses of Mayfair would almost as soon have omitted the name of
Adrien Leroy himself as that of his friend.
It was difficult to explain this other than on account of his engaging
amiability. Probably Vermont would have transformed the famous advice of
Uriah Heep to "Always be obliging." Certainly, no pleasanter company
could be found, whether for man or woman; whatever the hour, however
mixed the company, Jasper Vermont had always a smile, a jest, or a new
and piquant scandal. In the smoking-room he would rival Mortimer Shelton
in apparently good-natured cynicism. In a duchess's boudoir he would
enliven the afternoon tea hour with the neatest of epigrams and the
spiciest slander of her Grace's dearest friend.
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