He was a man who talked a great deal
without having anything to say, who had always had much success with
women, perhaps because he had always treated them very badly, who
dressed, danced and shot well, and who had never, even for a moment,
really cared for anyone but himself. A common enough type.
Sir Donald appeared next, looking even more ghostly than usual. He sat
down by Lady Holme, a little behind her. He seemed depressed, but the
expression in his pale blue eyes when they first rested upon her made her
thoroughly realise one thing--that it was one of her conquering nights.
His eyes travelled quickly from her face to her throat, to her gown. She
wore no jewels. Sir Donald had a fastidious taste in beauty--the taste
that instinctively rejects excess of any kind. Her appeal to it had never
been so great as to-night. She knew it, and felt that she had never found
Sir Donald so attractive as to-night.
Mr. and Mrs. Ulford came in just as the curtain was going up, and the
introductions had to be gone through with a certain mysterious caution,
and the sitting arrangements made with as little noise as possible. Lady
Holme managed them deftly. Mr. Laycock sat nearest the stage, then Leo
Ulford next to her, on her right. Sir Donald was on her other side, Mrs.
Leo sat in the place of honour, with Lord Holme between her and Sir
Donald. She was intensely pink. Even her gown was of that colour, and she
wore a pink aigrette in her hair, fastened with a diamond ornament.
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